Dragon? She liked that. Her toothy grin (one of her first since emerging from the infirmary). It was strange how depression and agony worked; never full, never 100% but it came in waves and small doses. Like your portions of hope were merely in existence to make the sadness feel worse.
"C'mon ... s'the least I can do," she told him. She nudged the box back.
Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2015 10:52 pm
The return of that grin was enough to tip his favor, and he sat up a little straighter and gave a half-smile in return. "Fine. It's past midnight anyway," he assumed, as time became more and more an illusion, "so I guess it counts now." Thus did he pull the box closer and open it to inspect what Chel would overwhelm him with this year.
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Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2015 11:40 pm
And overwhelm she had done, because Chel was nothing if not worryingly generous.
Presents weren't even wrapped, there wasn't a need to wrap things. In her house growing up they'd never wrapped things because there was no sense of suspense and often wrapping paper was a luxury they couldn't afford. Most of the time they were lucky to afford presents in the first place. So it wasn't a thing she was used to, and even when she did wrap it was in newspaper and plastic bags. Jack was too close for it to matter.
Firstly the usual remained in a small notebook (embossed to look like a tree grew over the front) and a small mug (shaped like the usual black coffee mug, but it had a bat wing for a handle).
Next to that was a small makeup kit. His very own (maybe if she'd remembered she would have mirthfully added a comment like: "so you'll stop usin' mine, eyeshadow hog" but now she looked at it with a blank expression). One that he could experiment with or do with as he pleased.
A small bag of candy tucked in the corner. She couldn't let him get away with hogging the entirety of Halloween. There needed to be some part of the holiday that remained.
The largest gift in the box was a runic'd neck massager, the kind the alleviated headaches. She figured he needed one after all this complaining.
A small, pocket sized recipe book of "essential" recipes. No doubt intended to be another joke, but now she looked on thoughtfully. Maybe she shouldn't have agreed to his dinners so quickly ...?
The last was a very scrappy looking piece of paper, with dark ink on the inside.
Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2015 11:50 pm
It was one more reason why he didn't want to do this with her, not as she was: there was no sense of the joy and anticipation behind each gift, only as slight furrows of thought and nothing more. They could have been unwrapping gifts from a stranger. He wanted to chastise her for the constant hypocrisy that was showering with gifts and hesitating to take something in return when it was her turn, but what good with it do now? He couldn't even properly thank her since she didn't remember buying them in the first place.
He stacked the presents methodically, too drained to give each an individual response (too drained to properly express how he wished he hadn't done this now after all), and went for the page with a greater curiosity than he had for the rest. Chel writing something was above the material gifts.
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Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2015 1:12 am
She leaned on his arm, surprisingly unaware of his disdain for the situation. His reactions were lukewarm, but maybe it was just her choice of presents. She had no way of telling.
What Jack would find was a scribbled mess. It had obviously been painstakingly done, because the grammar and spelling was remarkably in tact.
She had written them, pre-memory erasure, as a way of telling Jack: I'm serious too. She shied away from the dress, from his intensity, but she had taken the time to slowly work through this piece of paper to tell him as much.
Jack,
So I didn't really know what vows are, but you told me to marry you I had to recite vows and be mushy. so here you go a*****e. Abbi helped. idk.
Before I ******** you, my life was s**t. Like really s**t. Like I should be dead and it's my own ******** fault. Even you were a piece of s**t, and sometimes when I think about it it really pisses me off.
But the more time I spent with you, the less I felt like I was carrying everything. You believed in me when you really shouldn't have. I still don't know why. I'm not the top of the barrel, like don't ******** lie to me I know I'm not- but you make me feel like I am. It's gotten to the point where I can't do this without you. It hurts when you're gone. You know that though. Feels like I said it enough times right?
You're the most I love You make me happy because
Writing this ******** sucks because there's no way I can tell a crowd of people what you mean to me without having this s**t last for forever. You're smart, you're ******** hot, you're always there, you're the biggest a*****e- it goes on and on. I've told you a bunch of times. I'll tell you more times if you need it. You got bad things too don't get me wrong. You get huffy and pissy so ******** much. You suck at cooking. You almost killed me a few times. You saved me more times. There's lots of Jacks. Still love them all.
So if I gotta chop it down for everyone it comes down to this: you're my home. They can destroy this rock, legacies can ******** us over, but if you're there it's home. And if there's one good thing I got taught, it's that you protect your home. I been whining from here and back that I don't belong nowhere, and I think I just realized my place's with you. If you want to be a doctor, I want to be a nurse. If you want to be a knight, I want to be the dragon. I just want to be with you, I don't care about the rest.
I wrote this stupid ******** thing to tell a bunch of people that you're mine and I'm not ******** around this time. To all you guys: ******** off if you mess with Jack or me. His s**t's my s**t and Tenebrae don't doesn't have a problem cutting a b***h that thinks something different. Even if we finally get ******** over by Halloween, I'll come for him. (its also like c** but I wont say that lol)
I promise to love you in sickness and health and all that other bullshit. I promise bomb sex, a house with a pet dragon and to not get so mad after you kick my a** in the ring. I promise when we die we'll come back as vampires and make out on tombstones. I promise that I'm yours and you're mine and I won't ever stop being scared to all hell of losing you because I'm only me when I'm with you.
Abbi told me to say this and I think it's stupid but she got those big eyes and you can't say no to that s**t: I'd rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone.
I don't really know how to end this. Maybe you can think of an ending for me? Is it okay to have you write my vows for me?
P.S. u cant use htis as blackmal ashol. ill burn barbs.
(Below is a crudely drawn picture of stick figures at a wedding clapping with an arrow pointing to them saying "evry1 clapiug @ my kikass vows")
From over his shoulder, Chel fidgeted nervously. She couldn't read all of it that quickly, but from the words she gathered it was ... well it was an awkward time to be revealing this letter of sorts. s**t.
medigel
i got distracted gomen friend ...
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2015 10:45 am
It was long; that was unexpected. He almost stopped dead after the word vows, and maybe he should have. The timing was wrong, as wrong as opening presents when she couldn't remember them. But even if Finn was right, even if this was only temporary until she got her weapon back, he couldn't pass up a chance to put that pain at bay and continued to read.
It was a little like when they had exchanged through her artifact's realm before, raw and pointed and cutting without opening wounds. It was as if there was a vice grip around his heart as he went like by line, squeezing harder little by little in the most exquisite way. The two of them were usually so casual—she'd made him almost forget they were capable of something deeper than just gestures and silent words.
A small chuckle escaped him when he came across the drawing, which he then tried to turn into a cough. "So much cheese, it gives me heartburn," he explained without looking up. "God damn it..." Once again, Chel had given too much. He'd have to have his revenge eventually.
Jack folded the letter up neatly and tucked it into the pile with the rest before signing. "You're worth it, you know," he told the presents. "Even if you can't remember why."
chiickadee
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Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2015 9:06 pm
"Worth it?" she asked him, wrapping her fingers between his as he spoke, setting her chin on his shoulder to better face him. She was curious about that part. He was clearly withdrawn, she didn't push, just questioned.
It was easier to keep him talking than it was to face his obvious disappointment with the presents.
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2015 9:32 pm
"Yeah." He turned his head slightly and finally looked at her, still tired, still pensive, but affectionate. Rather than attempt to explain, he fell to impulse and leaned in for a kiss instead: not demanding but searching for something.
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Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2015 10:03 pm
Chel wasn't sure what he was looking for, but she would always , regardless of circumstance, try to help him find it.
She was hesitant, a trait not often ascribed to her in regards to sexual advances. The kiss was ... she thought she maybe understood her "home" a little better. It wasn't filled with affection like it normally was, but instead lingered a few moments too many, trying desperately to understand.
She tried to curb her reaction, but her hand was quickly on the back of his neck, pulling him into her. Explain to me, show me, use me-
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2015 10:32 pm
Clutching to his restraint was like trying not to fall off the slippery slope, harder still because he was in a twilight mood of exhaustion and renewing energy, at the fork of lost memories but same eyes, same hands, same lips. What was he afraid of exactly? That this might somehow be soured too? (Yes.) (That's insulting.) (Maybe.)
But perhaps it was a connection that couldn't be severed even when the memories were gone. Intimacy that was necessary, beyond just the sex if it came to it. He began to push her down and grew more aggressive, intent on at least leaving a mark before one of them pulled back. Chel didn't have her weapon on her, though; he had to be a little more careful.
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Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2015 9:45 am
And Chel let him, because despite being absent of love (or in Jack's case, being absent of the memory of love) it didn't require love to be someone's crutch. If Jack wanted marks and hands, she let him. These were things she could give, she could learn.
Her fingers trailed down his arm. With clothes and pretenses still holding up their guards, it didn't particularly feel intimate (maybe that was an aftereffect of her own dullness), but it did feel like Jack was unfurling the ball of knots he'd created in himself. She thought that was more important right now. Hope was essential.
"Happy birthday," she told him a little softer than they'd been talking before. It was sort of sad, that this was the present he was getting for his birthday. She gestured to box of presents. "Probably want to move that f'you wanna do anything."
Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2015 8:46 pm
It wasn't the same. Tenderness wasn't tempered with a wolfish grin. It wasn't the same, it wasn't equal. It reminded him of docile partners from the past, a willingness to commit and serve but lacking the passion he was used to. Jack was right: this too was soured, whether intrinsically so or because, as usual, he thought about it too much.
She was practically offering him pity sex at this point, and what was worse was that it was with good intent.
It was giving him a headache (heartache) either way. Rather than continue on his second hickey on her neck, Jack rolled over with a soft, noncommittal noise, one arm spread over her lazily still. "Tomorrow," he said with a yawn. "I have to get back at you for those presents."
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Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2015 9:31 pm
Chel was disturbed by the response. Limpid denial was the same as an empty bed in the morning and it made her cling to his side all the more desperately.
It was surreal, having a perfect partner handed to you by a memory and being thrust into intimacy. If anything it proved that Chel and Jack were two individuals forged in experience, not in idea.
"I'll hold you to it," she told his side, moving his arm to a more comfortable position and burying her face in his shirt. If she was there, she couldn't see the outline of his face, the clear exhaustion this was putting on them both.
She thought in the morning the one-and-a-half hickeys would look nice next to her scar. A good piece of art.
Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2015 9:50 pm
He almost added only if you're comfortable, but that would have been too soft, too much of a wuss. (Still insulting.) Instead he curled his arms around her and took comfort in the fact that at the very least it wouldn't be a lonely bed. In his exhaustion Jack forgot to move the presents but, well, if they fell over then they fell over. Nothing was so delicate that he had to worry should one of them be restless.
"Later," he tried to joke before he remembered she didn't. He tucked his nose into her hair and exhaled a breath, finally letting his heavy eyes close. "G'night, Chel."
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