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 Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 11:41 am
The Undead Don't Sleep
Normally he would have played for himself in the meantime, but it was way too cold for that. Hell, it was way too cold anyway to be out there, but there he was, bundled up and in a trance, sitting on that gravestone by a streetlamp alone: he could have been the cover of an emo album. At least it wasn't snowing yet.
"Hey." He sat up as she approached, actually unaware of just how late she was. "Yeah. Uh. So." He cleared his throat. "I remembered I owed you a song if you got over a D, so..."
Maybe the graveyard at night in Michigan wasn't exactly the best place to meet, in hindsight.
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Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 2:25 pm
The Undead Don't Sleep
"You made me come out here for a song?" she snapped, crossing her arms.
Yet she was pacing over to sit on the stone, shoving herself into him because it was ******** cold. It was awkward for a bit because they hadn't seen each other for a while and Chel hadn't told him much about why she'd disappeared.
So what resulted was a stunted, "Uh, how y'been?"
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Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 3:52 pm
The Undead Don't Sleep
"Yeah," he answered simply. And he was shamelessly pleased to see he was right, even with his expression frozen over and blank.
He shrugged in response. "Shitty. You?"
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Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 6:09 pm
The Undead Don't Sleep
"Same as usual," she said indifferently. Same as usual didn't mean good.
"Why shitty? James still shitting on you?" she said, not without a bit of edge in her force, a threat lingering in her tone. She elbowed his side, gesturing that he should start playing. It wasn't getting any warmer after all.
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Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 7:54 pm
The Undead Don't Sleep
"No."
He realized now that the sluggish yellow ooze rising in his throat is nervousness. It wasn't the first time he had played for someone, but with Chel suddenly there, his song choice felt less than satisfactory. Cliche even. But he wasn't supposed to be caring about that stuff, wasn't he?
"Why were you avoiding me?" he asked as he pulled his hands out of the safety of warm pockets and began to clip open his guitar case.
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Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 8:02 pm
The Undead Don't Sleep
"I can't?" she asked him back, adjusting her scarf once before returning her hands back to her pockets.
She leaned back on the rock (******** cold rock, ******** Michigan). "I was makin' things worse. Got out before they hit rock bottom." Her tone seemed to imply like always.
Same as usual.
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Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 8:14 pm
The Undead Don't Sleep
He pulled Barbara out and then rubbed his hands together; these fingerless gloves were made for winter, but they were still fingerless.
Stalling, stalling.
"You'll still have time after this," he told Chel as a matter of factly, still not facing her. "To leave, I mean. The ship is still sinking. Don't know when their signatures will go down on the papers, but soon it'll split in two halves." And the way he had been acting out lately, he doubted anyone would be ready to give him a life vest.
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Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 8:17 pm
The Undead Don't Sleep
"Speak English you stuck up p***k," Chel muttered, reluctantly pulling out a handwarmer from her pocket and sticking it under his fingers. Then she nudged him to start playing.
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Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 8:32 pm
The Undead Don't Sleep
"Not my fault you can't ******** read between the lines." His mouth quirked nevertheless for a moment as he squeezed the hand warmer; for some reason it made it easier to answer. "My parents are getting a divorce." It seemed a little more comical after the fact, about as funny as asking a girl to meet him in the freezing cold just because he couldn't stand to do any of this in earshot of other people.
More self-conscious now, he returned the handwarmer, set Babara in his lap, flexed his fingers, and fumbled for the pick. (This is so stupid, he kept repeating to himself.) Finally, after a shift in his seat, Jack began the song.
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Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 8:52 pm
The Undead Don't Sleep
Well that was ...
Well.
It was a pretty cheesy song and a pretty stupid scenario. Jack had an alright voice, still grainy without adulthood to temper it, but good.
For a time, Chel just sat there, frozen both by the temperature and what he'd just admitted. She held the handwarmer in front of her like her own life preserver, clinging to the object rather than focusing on anything going on around her. What did you say to that? What the hell did she ravel herself up in?
She didn't sing along; at the moment she wasn't even looking at him, but she did listen intently, and that had to count for something. Even as the song rounded out, she let him pick on in silence.
"Sorry," she said quietly after a while, pulling her legs up to the stone. "Don't really know what to say." so he picked on, so she went on trying to think of what to say. She gestured to the guitar. "You're amazing on that. Don't let it go to your big a** head." A graduate of the Shang "you fight good" school.
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Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 9:03 pm
The Undead Don't Sleep
Well, that could have been worse, he supposed. But not even the compliment was quite enough to blunt the blow to his ego that was the silence after the song. (It was hard not to care, he had realized, it took effort not to want to reach out when everything was starting to feel like it was moving out of his grasp.)
"You're welcome." Jack started to put Barbara back up, forcing himself past the awkwardness. "Anyway, yeah." (Idiot.) "So." (Idiot.) "Guess you don't need tutoring anymore." (Idiot.) "Free to escape the sinking ship again."
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Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 9:07 pm
The Undead Don't Sleep
Chel sighed and wrapped an arm around him in what could have been a hug had they not been sitting side by side, making the motion somewhat awkward. "I'm Jack Hawthorn and I'm too cool to need parents or friends because I'm a sinking ship." She flipped her blue hair sideways for effect to imitate his floppy blonde mess. "Ooooh look at me I'm so dramatic."
Then she started incessantly poking his sides.
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Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 9:21 pm
The Undead Don't Sleep
Rolling his eyes, he gave her a shove in response to stop the poking. "Just shut the ******** up and go if all you're going to do is make fun of me," he said tartly, finally turning to look at her with an icy glare.
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Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 11:33 pm
The Undead Don't Sleep
Chel's lighthearted laugh at his expense turned into something more reserved, more withdrawn. Always on the defense, she'd just forgotten for a moment.
The poking stopped and became a quiet embrace in the freezing cold winter. "Take a joke Hawthorn, 'cause it's gonna get worse than this," she told him. Not really optimistic advice, but Chel at this point wasn't an optimistic person. Chipper, upbeat sure but hopeful, no.
Despite her better judgment, she buried her face in the side of his head. "Yer gonna be okay though."
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Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 9:55 am
The Undead Don't Sleep
There was still a frostiness about him that had nothing to do with their surroundings. Take a joke. Right. Sitting in the cold on the off chance that that someone wouldn't ignore him when he called; playing a cheesy song for no reason other than, he supposed, to expose himself even more, to make it hurt just a little bit more in pursuit of God knew what; to pretend he didn't care at all when he hadn't mastered the technique yet, have it as a flimsy excuse to act out and then grow offended when the backlash came, an angry tantrum at the world that was supposed to owe him; to crave this attention, even if it meant abusing it while it was there--no, it wasn't funny.
It was pathetic.
And yet he was grateful nonetheless. He realized it had been a long while since someone had just held him--probably because he continued keeping people at arm's length and looking unapproachable these days. He couldn't recall the last time even his parents had touched him, honestly, which seemed a strange detail that had never mattered before. Slowly he sank into Chel's embrace, suddenly tired.
Maybe, he wanted to say. But Jack Hawthorn didn't do maybe's. Instead, he turned her head with one semi-numb hand and kissed her, indulging his wounded ego for as long as he could, for as long as that moment in time could be kept.
Winter could freeze them over before it would have to matter.
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