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 Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 10:03 am
Marked for Good
"Mm." Chill out sounded like a good plan. With the arm around her as an anchor, Jack pulled himself closer and closer his eyes. The ice pack had been forgotten; let Owain handle the bumps and bruises, he didn't want to feel cold and wet again. "Might fall asleep like this, so get comfy."
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Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 10:10 am
Marked for good
"Do what you need to do." Chel was more interested in her food than she was in another person using her bed. What was different was the small hand on his shoulder blades rubbing his back rhythmically in between eating.
That and the admission, "I'll be here" which was the closest she would get to love at the moment. Not when she had other images in her mind.
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Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 8:43 pm
marked for good
Bowl on the counter. She's ducked down low, headed for the bathroom. She's waiting on the floor, tiny hands on tiles. He can't wake up. She's getting too tall; it's hard to disguise herself below the counters now. Chel has to be the one to sneak into the kitchen to steal ice, because her mother's bruise is sapping all her strength. Chel's getting tall though- too tall to cling to the shadows and slide along the floor. Her form's too lanky, she makes too much noise with her gangly body. Flattened to the floor she has to crawl with the ice pack in between her teeth.
He can't wake up.
Chel waits until Jack's breathing grows heavy and she sets her bowl on her nightstand, right next to the ice pack. His arm is in the way. They're different, but the same.
Ice crunches between fingers that are too worn, fingers that should have been gripping a pencil or brushing hair or any number of things that weren't an ice pack followed by gripping a woman's hand to make sure she's still trying.
She bites her lip, the way she will even when she grows older. It keeps her from breathing too hard; she's afraid even the smallest increase in volume will wake him up. It's hard enough having to open the bathroom door, that goddamn squeaky bathroom door. Terror wasn't real until she had to put her hands on the door and push, had to pretend like she was some kind of outsider in this game, like it wasn't her fault.
She's found her way to the bathroom, leans on the floor with a deep sigh. It doesn't surface much, but Chel occasionally misses the stark nothingness of a good high. Deus isn't home, but home was never home to begin with. They said she'd get a new life. A new beginning. They never said anything about it following her here until she's sitting with her back against the shower door the same way her mother did. She's always been the one to ask why? Why? That question's been echoing in her chest so long she doesn't know how to ask the question anymore.
The woman has grown too attached to the bathroom floor, like a moss growing in her misery. Chel can't comprehend most of the curses, but she gets the word <********> and makes a note to ask what b*****d means later. She has a lot of questions actually. Chel has always been the child that asks why? Why? Why is the sky blue? Why does the bus go slower than cars? Why do you have to wear such heavy makeup? Why do I have to get ice? Why is this routine for us, for us, for us.
"Don't wake up,"
is what she mutters under her breath for an eleven year old child to hear as a side effect to her bitterness. It's such a tired sound, the way one complains about the weather or early mornings. Chel offers the ice pack and sits on the toilet, watching patiently and swinging her legs. She wants to leave, back to her room where she's safe (it's not safe, it never was, but on merit of being hers, it is), but something has her chained to the seat. Maybe maternal responsibility, more likely fear. Fear that the moment she leaves he will come. Fear that grows as she gets older; it keeps her from staying out most days (what if this is the day it happens and I'm not there to get her ice packs and bandaids?) until something in middle school snaps, because she can't take it anymore so she's never home and she's never there.
He's been asleep for so long and Chel knows he'll be mad she let him sleep too long. She comes out of the bathroom and turns the music player down, intent on being gentle. She hovers over his face for a moment, she wants to kiss him as fearlessly as she did in Athens, but the thing is-
He can't wake up.
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Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:09 pm
marked for good
He was too tired to say thank you and yet not tired enough to get a good sleep. The uneasiness that came with being infected wasn't at its heightened levels, but the knowledge that he could turn rogue on the wrong mission was disturbing enough to disrupt any lengthy attempt at actually sleeping. He wasn't too exhausted for it like work normally could be; body yes, mind no. Now the latter was running its course, laps and laps around the massive library he kept in his head. How he had done on the mission (average at best, generously speaking; should have stayed at camp, should have just stuck to tending to the wounded rather than play operative), what to do next, how to tackle it, what schedule, with who. Clones and antiviruses and red eye and Merlin still present, even in the background, because peace didn't mean he was gone--peace meant something else was building.
(Maybe that's where the pit clone got his suspicions from: this endless track of what if that nipped at his heels if he thought for too long.)
In a state of limbo, he felt and then heard her shift away. He was aware, distantly, that he continued to grasp at nothing, but even when alone the position was too comfortable to bother moving, and if he stayed still long enough and focused on the music, he managed to slip back under again. Every time he surfaced it was to something groggy and unpleasant, and he decided eventually not to bother anymore.
At length he felt the subtle heat from Chel and the shift in the air from her breath. He planned his response as she seemed to hesitate. "Well," Jack murmured, a corner of his mouth tugging to the side as he opened one eye, ready to pull her in, "if you're not going to--" He stopped, and the smile dropped when he saw the way she looked at him.
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Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:19 pm
marked for good
It was an incredibly rare instance that Jack was able to catch Chel off her guard. Certainly it wasn't impossible; many people had gotten the odd glimpse of Chel grimacing at a black eye, staring out of windows for moments too long, pulling on her chest at ill-timed instances.
Now was one of those times, and it left her too startled to come up with a sly excuse or a motion that would cover it up. She swallowed, grasping for anything with how dry her throat was.
The response came in a delayed push away from him. She refused, she refused to look at Jack that way. He was not related to the incident and it was unfair to drag him in. She leaned back on her heels and backpedaled the way she always did.
"Sorry," she choked, covering her mouth with the back of her hand and squinting somewhere else. "Don't know what I was thinkin'." It was a messy response that didn't seem to fit the situation at all, like calling someone by the wrong name. Chel's puzzle pieces had long since fallen in disarray, and sometimes when she tried to assemble them they came together incorrectly.
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Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:34 pm
marked for good
He blinked several times to force the drowsiness from his eyes, feeling a ball of tension form as she backed away. Jack winced as he forced himself to sit up from the couch, rubbing at the sleep marks on his arm and face (unconsciously running his fingers along the scar again, wondering if that was what she looked so scared about, then rubbing at his eyes). Somehow, resting had just made him feel more tired.
"Would you talk about it if I asked?" There were special times where his bluntness was traded off for courtesy: rare were the moments in which he saw Chel reveal herself like this.
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Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:50 pm
marked for good
It would seem like a very small gesture to him, but the bravery it took her to put her hand down from her mouth and into her lap, the sheer courage it took her to look back at him was unfathomable. More grandly, it was something only for him.
"No," she whispered quietly before clearing her throat and equally as quietly mouthing the first letter of the word. It took a third try before she could say, "I can't."
There was a terror in the tight line of her jaw and the stillness of her breathing. She tried to convey it's not you, but she couldn't form the words in their silence. A temporary disconnect separated them.
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Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 10:23 pm
marked for good
He met her gaze with a searching one. It said a lot about Jack's character that the first option he considered was accusing her of can't or won't? Was this another burden she was taking on and leaving him out of? (Was that what his infection was now? Was that what he would become, just like Chris' problems, a name on her laundry list of responsibilities?) But it also said something about how far he had come that instead of vocalizing any of that, he took a deep breath and exhaled them out instead. It would bother him until he found out what would make her look at him so fearfully, but there were precious few people he could swallow that lump down for. (Sharp edged, scraping down his throat on the descent to join what rancid mix lurked within now, reminding him that he was starting to get soft on the inside.)
Reaching out slowly, Jack cupped her jaw and ran his thumb over her cheek, feeling the way her muscles clenched, the faint outline of her teeth. Somehow, even when tensed like a frightened animal and on the verge of falling over another edge, even when he could still remember very clearly the way Grixlie made her wear hatred in those same guarded eyes that watched him now, she still looked beautiful. "Why not?" he couldn't help but ask nevertheless.
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Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 10:29 pm
marked for good
She was absolutely still when Jack touched her, holding her breath for something that would never come, but something that was supposed to come. She teetered between barking and biting, leaving and staying.
His question wasn't met with words, but with the soft shift of the sheets, the sinking of the mattress as her weight was added to it. She buried herself in Jack, in darkness, in a cowardly escape from the question. There was a mixed need to assure him it would never be him that was the problem (although very often it was) and a need to shake herself back to reality, back to Deus, back to why is the sky blue?
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Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 10:50 pm
marked for good
A non-answer was better than nothing, strange as that was; a collision was preferred over an escape. The envelope had been pushed enough for now, he was too tired to pursue. Inviting Chel to burrow, he leaned against the couch for support and wrapped his arms around her (to cage or to secure?), saying nothing.
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Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 10:56 pm
marked for good
Chel found strength in physicality and she had never been someone who could have secrets and dramatics, but this was one thing she had to sort out herself. She couldn't talk about it because she didn't know where to begin. She pushed it as far out of her mind as possible, and when it crept up there was no room for analysis.
But she did know where to begin with Jack, and that was a start. After a few songs had quietly hummed past on the music player, she murmured, "S'not your zombie skin." Clinging to his shirt became a lifeline to stop her hands from pressing into tiles again.
More quietly she tried to explain, despite the obvious wear on her heart. "You said while back that sometimes Stormy just takes you." It was miraculous that she could even get this far. "Stuff grabs me too."
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Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 11:59 pm
marked for good
The hotel robes were a thin barrier between them, gripped and easily tugged away. He could enjoy the few minutes of silence before words breezed over his skin. Chel was a puzzle that didn't always remember the sequence of what went where, but he hoarded what pieces he could take to make a skeleton frame: her picture wasn't always understood, but its colors could still be appreciated, even if it was a hot mess. It wasn't hard for him to remember the way she had frozen when he mentioned the berserk portion of his mission time, nor was it hard to pair it with her short explanation and draw a general conclusion to past violence. Anything more was beyond him for now.
He hummed a sigh after a while and tightened his hold on her. "Next time it does," Jack advised, half turning his head in so that it rested on her hair and he could murmur in her ear, "go for the eyes and kick its a**."
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Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2015 12:58 am
a-chording to
Sweeping the counter clean, he set the case down and clicked it open. Barbara, polished and beautiful as ever, winked at them. "I'm waiting for the private lessons innuendos to start," Jack drawled as he took her out and carefully removed the pick from her strings. "Go on."
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Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2015 1:25 pm
Marked for good
There was something greedy in her eyes when he spoke, something that asked more of Jack than clever words and thin affection, but as always she let the fire subside. Always in favor of a roundabout approach. It got lost in how tightly she shut her eyes against his neck when he squeezed, as though she could force a darkness that would have made Merlin jealous.
"If it was something I could punch," she argued, a hollow paradox in her words, "I would." Such a cyclic nature was the beast that Chel was repeated the past by attacking her problems as habit.
"It hurt when I'm on you like this?" she asked in reference to the scar. "I can get off or whatever.
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Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2015 1:30 pm
a-chording to
"Not really room for innuendos when you just gonna act on 'em. That's foreplay." She grinned her crooked grin and leaned over the opposite side of the counter.
When Barbara emerged she rolled her eyes. "So the plan's to burn this b***h and get rid of my competition right?"
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