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 Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 10:38 pm
Chel hadn't expected a scrap of comfort from the man (and nor would she want it- a comforting Jack was a creepy, warped Jack). She did want him to stop looking at her though. It was one thing to be vulnerable, but it was another to be vulnerable when people were watching.
She hiccuped, wiping the water away from her face as best she could. She needed to be presentable! Mature! The gross teary-eyed girl was unbefitting for being in Jack's presence!
"That's a coward's line. Say wh-what you want 'bout my intelligence and my appearance, but I a'int a coward." Chel was deeply loyal and perhaps a bit foolishly so. She'd grown up in the Southern atmosphere of "be a hero or die trying." In her home, there wasn't room for failure. And Chel's life? Chel's life was one big failure.
Maybe it would have been better to suck it up, live another day. That was where Chel's intelligence came into play. She was a hothead and passionately so, but it came at a cost to her judgment. "I was scared," she admitted more quietly. "I panicked." Just one more failure to add to her endless chalkboard of tally marks.
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Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 10:52 pm
"No," he agreed as his eyes opened, "you aren't a coward. You're a stupid country b***h trying to play hero." There wasn't anything sarcastic about it--it was closer to a toneless, tired acceptance of the facts.
Jack tilted his head up, looking for an answer in the bland ceiling. He mindlessly set the Gatorade down within Chel's reach and ran a hand through his hair, making a soft noise that could have been thoughtful or frustrated.
"You ******** picked a fight you couldn't win, Craft. We already get those enough, and just . . . Jesus, you couldn't just keep your head bent for once? That's not cowardice, that's being ******** smart."
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Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 11:01 pm
Chel looked to the Gatorade and thought about taking it, but no. No, she would be a good girl and wait her turn.
"What do you want me to say?" she snapped, not with harsh tone but with an annoyance that Chel hadn't previously shown Jack. She was tired, injured, and now insulted. "I'm sorry. I ******** up. I ******** up real bad, Jack."
The sniffles came back and she just frowned. "Why do you even care Jack? Ya got other people to be your coffee bitches. I'm sorry I texted ya and interrupted your important book or whatever it was. Just didn't want to die. Sorry for that too."
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Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 11:29 pm
Care. His eyes narrowed at the word, and the bits of sympathy that had been rising slowly, slowly to the surface, the memories of lashing out at Peyton while bedridden and suffering for it, were dragged back down to drown. It had been just as foolish a move as this was anyway. Chel wasn't the only stupid ******** idiot: he was too. He shouldn't have come at all, if this was all he was going to do. So what was he doing there?
(Duty calls.)
His head lolled back down with an unreadable expression in his eyes, and the listless, factual tone conitnued. "I am tired of seeing people here when they don't have to be. I am tired of people I know insisting on throwing themselves into danger because they're ******** useless ******** with ******** self-destructive habits and no ******** neurons to rub together. I am tired," and his fingers curled slightly, "of putting bandages on wounds that shouldn't either exist or still be existing."
It was, perhaps, the most he had revealed of his inner thoughts in a while.
"Why'd you even call me here, Craft?" he asked with more energy, quick to retreat from that moment. "There are techs already around; I wasn't even in the infirmary."
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Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 11:42 pm
Chel listened quietly, not interrupting his little rant because it was clearly something he needed to get out of his system. In an odd way, he was saying he didn't want people injured, which she supposed was good? Jack had such an odd way of communicating his feelings (if they could be called feelings).
"Yeah 'cause the first thing I do when a guy is opening a wound is think 'hey if I scream for help I bet he'll let up!'" she retorted, in reference to her reasons for not calling for the techs. "As to why you ..."
She sighed, not really having an answer herself. "If i called Chris, Evan'd be dead. I don't want him dead, even if that's what he wants for me. Plus then Chris would die for killing Evan. It didn't feel smart. I don't want Chris in danger 'cause of me." That was the goal. Always. "Finn's too far down in my phone contacts, 'cause his name's Moonbro in my phone." Her phone, her rules. "And that leaves you at Beanstalk. I knew Evan would notice- he's sharp. So I just texted the first person I saw."
Chel was not being entirely honest. Jack had saved her once on the battlefield, and maybe she'd been hoping he'd do it again. All the while knowing that most likely, he wouldn't. Rather quietly, a with a hint of a smile, she added, "And I think last time it was me bandagin' you hotshot." Ah yes. Those were fond memories indeed.
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Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 11:56 pm
"Scream loud enough in the infirmary, someone'll come running." He would know, he had done so to get Peyton thrown out of the infirmary. "And for the record," Jack added with a snort, "prior to you bandaging me, a job which only came about because you pissed off that tech, I had to make sure you didn't burn up from going supernova. It's two to one, Craft: you owe me."
Even though he had barely done a damn thing except berate her.
"Remind me who Chris is again. That Moon with us back there?"
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Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 11:58 pm
"I'm always gonna owe you," she said grumpily, a five year old's grudge. "Someday I'll win," she grumbled under her breath.
When he asked about Chris, Chel's mood immediately soured. "Yeah. He's my cousin." Everything about her screamed don't ask.
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 12:00 am
"You failed to mention this before."
He was going to ask.
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 12:01 am
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 12:10 am
"I thought family would be a welcome addition to you?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 12:11 am
Chel's teeth were grating on one another with annoyance now. She realized that Jack wasn't leaving any time soon and even if he did he would just go ask Chris himself if he cared enough.
Once again, Jack won.
"Ughhh. It's complicated. You got time for another story?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 12:17 am
It was quite possible that a hint of a smile had appeared for a split second. He always won indeed.
Jack picked up the Gatorade, tilted it without touching the edge with his lips, drank some more, grabbed the cup, poured some in, and finally offered it to Chel.
"Why not."
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 12:26 am
Chel lit up at the offering of the gatorade, tail wagging once more as though none of their previous bickerings had happened at all. She immediately went to sip it, but then realized he was waiting on her story. Right. Jack first.
"Chris and me ... I don't know, we're- we were? are? best friends. Growin' up with only one other person seein' shadows kinda binds you together no matter what, I s'pose." Though Chris had personality quirks that melded with Chel beyond the shadows too, of course. "A few years ago, he says he's goin' to ********' Iraq. Says he wants to make more of his life. Just ********' ditches me."
The pink haired hunter was still bristling over the matter. "Recruiters came to me. Tellin' me how they know 'bout Chris. Sayin' they'll leave him alone if I come to Deus and do their gruntwork." She fingered the plastic of the cup, feeling awkward and way too personal. "So I ******** up and said yeah. Few months later, guess who pops out of the pod?" Now was when she took a drink, but Chel put her lips across the entire rim. She didn't care about germs or whatever. "I punched him right across the face I was so mad."
She looked back to Jack and said, "Listen, me? I'm nothin'. I'm just another set a' hands to carry your coffee. But Chris? He's was goin' places. He wasn't just another small town bum like me." Somewhere deep down she'd always known this. Chris was special, always was. She was just the kid that followed him around. "Maybe he ******** up too, comin' here. Maybe they tricked him. Dunno and I don't care." She looked to Jack with a serious expression. "But a'int nobody messin' with him. I'll ******** them up." An ambitious statement for someone in a hospital bed.
Idly, she thought about Evan. She'd have to warn Chris about him without explaining the situation. Great- more work.
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 12:39 am
Once again Jack did his typical sipping-silence treatment as Chel spoke, returning to his usual cat-like airs of aloofness. One wanted to be a hero, the other wanted to be a soldier. He suppose that made sense looking back on it; Chris for the most part seemed in control of himself during the firefight. He thought about chiding her for believing anything a shadowy organization promised, then decided to drink from the bottle some more instead. Chel just . . . trusted things in a way he didn't comprehend, which was best.
"Message recieved," he said with his hands up in a half-assed gesture of surrender. "Don't ******** with him. Wasn't planning to."
After a pause, Jack asked more curiously, "What's it like, having an actual blood relative on the island?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 12:45 am
Of all the questions to ask, that was what Jack wanted to know? Weirdo.
"Really ******** annoying," Chel said shortly. Always having to worry about what he was doing, of course. But it was smaller things too. Like when things got comfortable and they were just relaxing, it almost felt like the old days. But then some giant monster would attack the island and the nostalgia would melt away in two seconds flat. That was what Chel hated most.
At least Jack got the message to leave Chris alone. Then again, she'd also given away her greatest weakness. Crap. "More?" she asked innocently, holding her Gatorade cup out. Maybe if she was lucky ...?
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