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She hadn't shortsheeted Miriam Jacobs' bed that night. She'd done one better: after an extraordinarily irritating orchestra session where they both ended up being reprimanded (reprimanded! For God's sake, she and -- Miriam -- were carrying the strings section!) she'd laid a very fine, thin roll of cooler, meant to be wrapped around a limb, underneath Miriam's pillowcase. When the brunette girl had laid her head down, it had been freezing. She'd removed the thing with dignity, put it on the dresser, without even a Barrett, but her light aagh! when putting her cheek on her arctic pillow had been satisfactory enough.

Now they lay in the dark, curtains pulled, silence reigning --

Ping.

Oh, God.

Ping.

So this was what it was like having a boyfri -- lover.

Ping.

Hero Barrett had a mark that would have been a hickey covered up with pancake makeup except that Hero Barrett would not have any hickeys, ever, and thusly no need to cover up anything with pancake makeup.

The redhead swung her legs around and went to the window. Miriam Jacobs had not ratted her out the last time; that was strange in and of itself, but she had come back in around 4 AM and slid into her bed in silence. The trellis seemed to hold her weight adequately. Now she heard her roomie turn around restlessly as she went to the window, opened it, and hissed:

"LAWSON."

He had flowers. She pinched the bridge of her nose. To Miriam, she said -- very nonchalantly, highly nonchalantly -- "It's my cousin."

Instead of protesting innocence, Hero said, "Go to Hell, Jacobs," and dragged on slacks and a coat over her pyjamas. The window was opened; she shimmied down the trellis; she took the (pretty; who the hell did he think she was) flowers in hand and they scarpered to slink along beside the security fence. "For God's sake -- augh. Thank you. For the sentiment."

The flowery sentiment. The girlish, flowery sentiment. There were roses. She kept on staring at the thing as though it were a time bomb, not a bouquet.

"Do you even sleep any more, or do you spend all your nights gathering Destiny City's only supply of pebbles?"

Every pebble he threw was a river pebble, smooth and round. She suspected he went riverside simply to gather pebbles that wouldn't accidentally smash the window -- then again, would he really care about a Crystal Academy smashed window? He was the type to sit there with a slingshot and take out each and every single one. Customary in Alabama , indeed. Why did he have to have an accent.

"You are literally, thoroughly insane."

No, he was just crazy. And probably was also of the opinion that he would sleep when he was dead -- Jude Lawson shuffled from high to low to high to low, a burning blaze when he was happy, dead-eyed and shadowed when he was not. His depressions were deep-set, guilt-ridden, terrible depressions. He kissed her over the flowers, and she reflected the fact that somehow -- some way -- some happenstance, she had landed herself a manic pixie dream girl.

In the form of Jude Lawson, with his deep drawling Alabama accent.

There was no one person alive who split her between genders so much; for some reason she wanted to be the man who placed his hand on the small of his back, lead him down the street, was the shelter he came to -- Jude doth protested queer too much. And then, as she'd told him, I gave you myself as a woman. She had.

(and in another life, his hand had carefully been placed at the small of a back with long deep navy hair)

She swung the flowers at her side, and rested her hand on the small of his back, fingers tucked in a little to his jeans.

"I am your brother and your Captain," she said severely. This had not stopped them, like, ever. So he was the Captain's bit on the side. "You need to get some sleep, I don't want you functioning at ten percent -- maybe if you slept, what can I do to get you to sleep other than slip you Nyquil?"

One finger rested on his tramp stamp. Deep in her heart she called it his 'tramp stamp.'

They were young. Their relationship consisted solely of insane Edward Cullen smouldering and making out. She was the one who felt due Christian guilt at this (he appeared to be fine with God when it came to this topic), and she raised her free hand and pressed it against his chest. The flowers were in the other hand and could be a makeshift club. "Sagittarius," she said, low and dangerous, "are you telling me that you don't have your henshin pen on you, which you should have one hundred percent of the time in case you are ambushed?"

Her voice rose. "In the middle of the night? Which is when the youma are around?"

She yanked her hand away, making a noise of disgust. "We're going to get it. Now. For someone with an overdeveloped sense of protectiveness -- you're not even Cancer -- you."

Hero trailed off. Her voice was quiet. "This is just you playing at flirting with suicide again." A flat accusation. "Your henshin pen, Lawson. Your henshin. Pen."

Hero's conversations about Jude were different, also lamely protesting. Miriam going to glue the window shut, sneak off to see your boyfriend by yourself was met with complete lame protestations and faux offense. She was not about to jump on the couch. She was much more obsessive than that. Jude Lawson is my brother-in-arms. Jude Lawson is my sin, my soul. JUDE LAW-SON. Jude Lawson is my soldier, my body, my breath. Tom Cruise would have been squicked. My body, my blood.

They were young.

She'd assumed that he'd been living on a park bench, or with a friend, either or -- when Hero Barrett saw the reality of his storage unit she blanked out over it utterly. Storage unit. He was living inside a storage unit. He was living inside a bachelor pad storage unit -- a couch he'd gotten inside off the sidewalk, numerous boxes, a number of extremely cheap beer cans that had held extremely cheap beer. It was important not to deride the fact that he was living like -- like. There were extraordinarily rude things she could say, considering she was a Yankee and he was from the good ol' South.

Beer cans.

And a gun.

She took her coat off, folding it over one arm, placing it on the arm of the couch -- she was still in slacks and a pyjama top -- and made a beeline for the gun. She was opening it up, checking the bullets, shaking them out into her hand before he could protest, then loading them back in.

Aimed it at him.

"What's this for, Lawson."

It was not quite a question.

(It was Hero, if she shot at him she'd get the wall.)

She pulled the gun down, contemplated it; raised it, pressed it to her own temple. He didn't step forward: he knew the safety was on. Hero placed the gun down on the side table again and started sweeping a few crumbs off the couch -- he was ungentle, she was ungentle. They were two people who had no idea how to not be rough. She swung her legs up on the trash couch (it was scrap cushioning, not an actual couch) and she lay down on it, her head against the arm. It was going to take Jude a while to find his henshin pen.

That was saying a number of things: he hadn't henshined up in a while, had he. He was patrolling or wandering as Jude, not Sagittarius. He'd said it wasn't a death wish. Death wishes hung around Jude like pretty ornaments on a Christmas tree.

Hero half-closed her eyes, watching him search through his boxes of detritus for his wand -- she tucked her feet into the cracks of the sofa, the oozing foam from a rip in one of the seats. He lived in a storage container. It was starting to beat her in the face how different they were: my body, my blood. She had a band-aid around her ring finger.

"How many lovers have you had."

This was a tangent.

"Curiosity," she said, irritated, stretching one leg up -- stretching out the hamstring, reaching up, annoyed at how he'd laughed. Predictable avoidance technique. "Non-judgmental curiosity." They both knew that if the same question was asked back at her, it would be ridiculous: one, him. "I don't recall you having a girlfriend in our time at Barren Pines. I don't recall you having a girlfriend." She stretched her memory back. "A few normal girls. I don't recall."

It was stretching far back; he hadn't been Andeon, but --

"Indulge me."