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 Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 8:54 pm
And Chel met his distrust with utter trust and acceptance. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she pulled him into a hug. She'd seen his hand curling around the hilt, but by this point she was half expecting a dagger in her back or a set of teeth to appear anyways.
"I don't really know what to do so I'm going to do this." That was what she could do without freaking out and scaring him off in a different way. "And I might not ever let go just warnin' you."
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 9:19 pm
He didn't let go of the dagger for a moment, but the tension slowly began to leave his body in hesitant increments. Jack had told her the story of the tiger and the man for a reason, and it wasn't to illustrate his point about no heroes. Except every time he should have been left in the pit, Chel arrived with the log to get him out; every time he opened his mouth, regardless of whether he said truth or lies, regardless of what others said about it, she listened and accepted it.
She was a dangerously stupid and selfless creature, and it should have been easy just to leave it at that. It wasn't the instinct to brawl and beat like it was with Peyton, the give and take of vengeance--this was take, take, take until she tried to stop it. But what was he taking? (And did it matter?)
Jack sagged his head over her shoulder and sighed through his nose. "Careful what you say," he murmured. "Barbara's right there you know."
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 9:24 pm
"Barbara can get in on it too," she replied, making a motion for the guitar to join as if it could. Her hand instead fell to the back of his head, petting him like she always did.
Always would. "I have a billion questions and ya have to answer all of them."
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 9:30 pm
"Is that right?" Some of his usual dryness crept back in as he closed his eyes and fell prey to the magic touch. "Shoot."
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 9:32 pm
"Am I a lady on the side or are you gonna tell Hanna?"
A pause or two as she considered this. "M'fine with either." And sadly enough, she was.
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 9:34 pm
He found it surprisingly easy to answer on the spot. "I'll tell her when I see her. I doubt she gives a s**t any more. I don't."
And if she did, well, then he'd handle it.
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 9:40 pm
Chel smiled despite her previous statement.
"Can I tell people or is it a secret?" She laughed and said, "Think carefully 'cause my selfie game is strong."
Merry Christmas, your present is the 20 questions game.
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 9:54 pm
"I don't know, do you feel like having 75% of our friends being openly and vocally opposed?" Jack asked in return. "We haven't even...Look, I...Just." He sighed again, his brow furrowing. "I'm not ready to deal fully with...all that again, alright? Let's go with, s**t I don't know, friends with benefits." A paltry title in comparison to all that had happened. He made a frustrated noise. "Or--You know how Finn's got that weird deal with Crowell? Something like that."
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 10:27 pm
Oddly enough, Chel was entirely complacent with such a halfway, lopsided relationship. "Sounds good to me, Beanstalk. Do I really come off as a big committment person? C'mon," she murmured into his shoulder. Chel had never really been one to care about being called by a particular title, so long as there was a title for her.
"Stuff in public?"
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 10:43 pm
A little more tension left him.
"More of a private person," he replied with an implied, Surprising, right? "So no, no embarrassing public serenading if that's what you mean. Not unless I get high on meds again or something. PDA just feels...I dunno." He almost shrugged until he remembered her face was pressed there, then chuckled faintly. "Still can't believe I really went through with that."
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 10:52 pm
"You can't stop me," Chel whispered defiantly, but she knew Jack better than to test his patience. Even if it wasn't Jack, Chel was very good about respecting peoples' boundaries once they vocalized them. That sent her thinking about Dawson and she nope'd right out of that path.
She had lied earlier because she detached herself enough to look at him with the ugliest goofy smile known to man. "I have others but most of them involve less clothin'." Chel was both crude and incredibly open. "What about you? Any questions?" Funny how the tables had turned- moments ago she'd been picking her words carefully, but now that Jack had given her the chance they were pouring out left and right.
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 11:09 pm
"Is that a challenge?" he whispered back.
He was smiling a little when Chel pulled away--or, well, more of a one-sided tug of his mouth than anything else. Jack let the dagger go and flexed his fingers free of their stiff and curled grip.
(It struck him that this was eerily similar to the deal he had struck with Lucky in another life: no labels, no public displays, all trepidation and open space somehow roped by a common thread between two people exploring. The comparison to someone that gay, however, almost made him shiver in disgust.)
"Mm...Just one for now, probably more later." He smoothed his hand along her hip. "Is there anything I can do better next time I want to write you something?"
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 11:26 pm
"Pay for the world's first brain transplant?" Chel replied sardonically. Years of conditioning had made her bitter.
But the tension relaxed when she realized Jack was serious. "Ah ... s**t ..." It was her turn for her hand to go to the back of her neck. "The ... gold s**t on the sides. Don't do that. Don't write in other colors in general actually, unless each letter's a different color. It makes s**t really hard to-" She gestured with her hands, pushing them apart to mean "separate," but it was a more 3D motion than that, like she was making a cube and pushing blocks around. "I heard there's fonts or somethin' for it but I ain't ever seen 'em. Didn't care enough."
More quietly Chel admitted, "Oh- If I ask ya to read or write somethin' ... just ********' do it. I don't ask for help unless it's really ********' hard."
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 11:42 pm
"Damn, I actually like having fancy paper filigree...But I'll look into the fonts thing," Jack said with a little nod, making little mental notes. "What about mission reports? Want me to tackle those, or are you going to make Chris do them?"
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 11:49 pm
"Fil-ah-gree? 'As what you call the little swirlies?" Chel drew a circle in the air imitating it. "Well you can still have that silly s**t for other people. Ain't no reason not to show off how fancy you are."
She grinned at her joke, but stood to get the remote from her nightstand. The DVD was already loaded in the player and all she had to do was press play once they wanted to start. "I can do my own reports." Not well of course, but she'd survived on the island thusfar and even achieved a full rank, so it couldn't be that bad. "I'm stupid, not helpless."
The whole room felt airy now, much lighter now that she'd had several weights removed and a thousand goals fulfilled. She eyed her phone but decided no, not right now. Abbi could wait. Chel moved back towards the end of the bed and into Jack's lap. It was odd how the place had been totally foreign to her before, but one camping trip later and it was home base. "You ready?"
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