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 Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 3:19 pm
Jack let her have her laugh; it was a lot better to listen to than the beeping or him awkwardly trying to explain his s**t. "Yeah, well...There's a lot of different me's, right?" He shrugged, pausing to give a wan smile. There were clones of him out there now to boot. "Means there's a lot've different things to show and a lot've different ways to show them. I'm confusing like that." He lightly tapped the empty bottle to where he thought her arm was. "Please and thank you. There should be a few more bottles in there." Again there was the silent invitation.
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 3:34 pm
"Yes you are," Chel murmured, moving over his body once more to get more water. Really they should have just switched sides so Chel had easier access to get up, but Jack had to be difficult. Of course.
Unlike Jack, Chel wasn't a sweating mess. She was used to sleeping alongside other people, and the heat didn't bother her. Especially after the freezing temperatures of the infirmary and the quarantine; the heat was welcome.
She got two bottles this time, handing one to Jack and setting the other one on his nightstand in case he wanted it later. Before beginning the second ascent, she paused to put her hair in a messy bun, and stripped off her jeans, leaving the shirt and the rest of her outfit in tact. "Don't freak out. S'just hot. M'not gonna do anything."
Then she crawled back over him and took her spot with ease while he messed with the second bottle. "S'kinda like when me and Chris have sleepovers." She paused and then said in a falsetto voice, "I could braid your hair and paint yer nails if you want."
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 3:49 pm
He made a noncommittal sound as he drained a third of the second bottle. It was hot, though with the air conditioning kicking in, maybe they'd get to sleep soon. It wasn't like they hadn't seen each other in less anyway. The third water bottle was quietly appreciated nevertheless. "Mm, s'it getting that long?" Jack asked with a critical glance at his bangs. "s**t. I need to cut it before someone mistakes me for a beautiful woman from behind..." He sighed and capped the bottle closed. "You two're really close for just cousins."
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 4:01 pm
"I like it longer. Makes you look like you give less of a ********. Ya need more of that in your you." She combed some of it out with her fingers to further emphasize her point. The more rebellious someone looked the more Chel liked it.
He asked about Chris and Chel blew out a long breath of air. Chris was at least something safe for her to talk about. She'd always be okay with it. "We just grew up together. He lived a few houses down even. Both our parents are dicks, so we kind of just had each other." Hands still threaded through Jack's hair absently, not even realizing the motion she was doing. "He's my best friend I guess. Stuff just got complicated."
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 4:21 pm
He scoffed but smiled a little. This time he didn't stop her from doing what she wanted, because not even Jack could deny how nice it felt to have someone run fingers through his hair. He found himself closed his eyes. "Yeah? He's a stand up guy, I guess. Kicked my a** after he found out we slept together, he probably told you about that." He indicated with the bottle at one side of his jaw, even though it was near impossible to see. "Left more than a couple of bruises as parting gifts. Complicated or not, I'm glad he's here for you."
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 4:52 pm
Every once in a while Chel's hand brushed along Jack's cheek, only because of the close proximity to his hair. She tried to retract her thumb whenever she noticed, but sometimes it couldn't be helped.
"He didn't tell me that," she said quietly. "But I can put two and two together. Yer bruises and his attitude in the ..." She went quiet and then said, "Chris ain't difficult to figure out. He's an open book like me."
She said, "How come I'm always tellin' you 'bout me. Tell me somethin' 'bout you before Deus." Her tone was very similar to when Abbi had demanded a secret of Jack. "Can't be somethin' I already know!"
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:11 pm
"Surprised he was quiet. I didn't exactly let him live losing the bet down." Then again, Chris hadn't been gentle even after he won the spar, so he supposed they were even now. Yawning, he unconsciously leaned his head towards her hand like a cat. "Mm," Jack hummed thoughtfully as he put the water bottle by the third one, noting its location only after nudging it a few times. It was hard not to hear the similarities in tone, and smiled to himself. "Mm...well...I dunno, I was a boring guy before. Popular, but boring. But here's something: I used to run a site for people to post their supernatural experiences. Wasn't a great moderator or anything, and it was just some shitty proboard thing, but I talked with people who saw shadows too. It's sorta how I met Finn."
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:20 pm
"So you were a nerd," Chel concluded. "You knew Finn before Deus?" she said, somewhat surprised. Then again, it made a little sense with how close the boys were.
Chel smiled with his feline behavior but said nothing, just kept doing what she was doing. If he liked it, she wouldn't stop a good thing. "What was the site called?"
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:45 pm
He made an indignant noise. "Wasn't a nerd, just wanted to collect data, read stories," he corrected her, "know that I wasn't crazy seeing these things. But yeah, I knew him a little before. We talked on AIM mostly.
"The site was called The 13th Hour. The specific subforum for people like us was The Nightwatch. Verum est sicco illic," Jack recited, butchering it completely. "The truth is out there."
Unsurprisingly, even as a teen he was overdramatic.
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:58 pm
"You were a huge nerd," Chel corrected his correction. "Wish I woulda had somethin' like that. All I got was Chris to asure me I wasn't crazy. Then he left for the military and I was pretty alone." It was something relatively personal that she didn't easily talk about- the part where Chris had up and left her.
"More productive 'n me at least. Was goin' to a community college for something bullshit like computer science." Chel's entire life had been a downward spiral to nowhere. Actually, she'd already gotten to nowhere. It was called Deus Ex.
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 6:04 pm
"Wow. I make a site so I'm a huge nerd, but you go in for something like computer science and you're just fine? Wow." He opened an eye to search for her face in his peripheral, darkness or not, to give a judging look. "You mentioned that before, though, a while back. Still can't see how you'd do well in it unless it's all about playing video games."
Or following someone else's orders, he almost said.
"So your house was bad too, huh?"
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 7:43 pm
"Parents said I couldn't sit on my a** and do nothing. Took a major that I thought meant sitting on my a** and doing nothing." She had been relatively good at coding back in the day, but nobody- not even she- expected to graduate. "You can see why Deus was a blessin' at the time."
The next part caused her to raise an eyebrow. Oddly personal statement. "Not bad ... Parents weren't mean to me or nothin'. I heard some s**t some people gone through here- ain't nothin' like that." It seemed everyone had a tragic backstory here at Deus, and being a people-person Chel had heard quite a few. "Just ... they wanted me to be their blonde haired blue-eyed baby that went to college n' did s**t right. Never could follow through. Quit everything they put me in, did shitty in school 'cause of the dyslexia- which by the way, they didn't acknowledge 'til I was in high school and by then I was ********. Bad at sports, terrible motivation..." More quietly, and perhaps moreso pointed at Jack, "Never could meet nobody's expectations."
She shrugged. "What was yours like?"
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 7:57 pm
He was quiet for a while and let his eye shut closed again; personal matters always took him a little longer to digest than normal. Jack could have been mistaken for falling asleep if he hadn't remained sitting upright.
"Sounds bad enough to me," he said eventually. "Bad doesn't always mean abusive or whatever. Just means it's wasn't good to you. But my question is: What did you want to do?"
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 8:02 pm
"I ********' hate that question," Chel answered emptily. "I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was ********' 17 and wanted to sit on a couch with Chris all day playin' games." She moved onto her back instead of her side. She now hated laying on her back both because the bracelet's glow became more apparent and because she could still feel the metallic restraints on her wrists.
But she wanted to look up at Jack's face, even if it was creepily lit up by the red bracelet. "I really, really don't like how everything's 'bout the future. They tell you to live in the moment until you're 'bout to leave high school and then Buddha goes out the window n' college applications take his place." She was very grouchy and sore on the subject, but there was something childish in her anger.
She gave Jack a more square look and said, "You didn't answer my question."
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 8:21 pm
The resentment was almost jarring in the current mood, but in some ways he empathized with her. That was a sign that he needed better sleep all right.
He opened his eyes and looked straight ahead, the bruises darkening his face so that in the dim light of the bracelet he looked especially gaunt. Or like a Tim Burton film extra. "I pry because it's more important than ever that you figure it out," he said calmly, steadfastly ignoring her prods. "You walked into your current situation because you didn't want to deal with the present or the future. Forget high school and college, Craft. What you do with your career is your life here, and up until now you decided to act without thinking. But just because they're watching you now doesn't mean it's over."
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