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 Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 10:01 pm
When Finn started making sense, that was when things got bad.
She felt a strange sense of deja vu as a sixth training dummy cracked at the wooden base, splintering from the bottom up and toppling over due to the top heavy nature of the beast. It was similar to the placement and situation of when she'd gone and talked with Evan (which hadn't stayed talking for long). Chel wondered who exactly was responsible for repairing and replacing all of the broken dummies. They must have been paid a fortune.
Having nothing to do but keep her mind busy, Chel had spent the last three days attempting to master a move that was far too advanced for her, and the cuts around her hands showed it. It involved throwing a dagger, then spinning and catching it in the opposite hand as a means of adding more momentum to your hit (she'd been watching another sun with daggers do it, and needless to say Chel immediately found the need to master such a uselessly flashy skill).
But she hadn't mastered it at all, and her hands were starting to bleed in the annoying way that made it so she couldn't ignore the pain (there were different thresholds of cuts, she thought). Six dummies wasn't much of an accomplishment, but she sat herself down by the hay bails anyways and began the arduous task of bandaging her hand. She would have been okay after that, but she was too antsy to get back up. Instead she downed part of her waterbottle and leaned back against the hay with her eyes to the sky.
< It has been three days and the probability of success is- >
"Yeah I got it."
Chel let her shirt breathe a few times, the sweat already making it stick to her back and chest in an annoying way. She'd spent the morning working out with Chris (who had begun to exercise way more than she'd ever thought possible. Good for him?) and now she'd taken down half the dummies in the area. She was running out of things to do and it wasn't even noon.
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 10:42 pm
Two days wasn't two months, but the Sahara was still the Sahara. He spent his first day back in the infirmary, having caused a mild scare when he reported being exposed to Famine beetles, quarantined despite getting a clean reading just in case. He needed to get hydrated again anyway and welcomed the hours of silence, the astringent smells of the infirmary, and the ambient noise of work that soothed him. Jack wandered his thoughts and ignored the stings of his sunburns and wounds as Owain worked to assuage them with the bandages.
Absolutely nothing removed the little dreamy smile he wore, because the desert hadn't beaten him. He slept well that night.
On the third day he rose still somewhat aching but at least discharged from the infirmary without further fuss. After inhaling the fresh morning air and sighing, he reached for his phone.
Quote: Text to Chel:Back. Where are you?
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 10:47 pm
Chel had closed her eyes to rest for a moment or two, but the buzzing alerted her. She'd been far too greedy with her phone, using it to waste time, but also getting too excited each time it buzzed with expectation.
That bothered her too.Quote: Text to Beanstalk: dumy feld. u? Text to Beanstalk: wb
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 10:51 pm
Quote: Text to Chel:Thanks. Just got out of the infirmary. Overnight stay only, no cool scars to boast about. Quote: Text to Chel:I'll let you do your thing first. Is your door unlocked? I need a shower.
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 10:59 pm
Quote: Text to Beanstalk: [934891034.jpg] i thiuk they don Quote: Text to Beanstalk: shud b. b ther n a few
---
Upon entering the room she saw no sign of Jack having entered save for the sound of running water. She put her tokens on the counter, feeling unusually energetic now that the reality of him being back had hit her.
In a Chel-like fashion she put her cheek on the bathroom door and whined, "Let me come innnn." Beyond impatience, Chel really was sweaty from the morning and needed a shower too.
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 11:22 pm
Quote: Text to Chel:Lol. Glad to see you haven't lost your touch. --- Efficient healing or not, he still had to be careful with running water over his arms and face. The shower was taking him longer than usual, and Jack was in neither the mood nor the position to get out and unlock the door when he heard Chel whining against it.
"Nice to see you too. You can wait," he said over the sound of the lukewarm water. "I won't take that long, Jesus."
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 11:23 pm
"Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaseeeeeeeeeee."
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 11:24 pm
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 11:29 pm
"Killjoy," she muttered under her breath, stomping like a child to the foot of her bed (the anger was ruined by the pink lights that glittered the sides- thanks Finn), where she sat on the ground and began unstrapping her shoes.
At least changing her clothes made her feel better. Less sticky, less trapped. Her skin still itched from an unknown feeling, but it was better.
"You ain't got a third arm or nothin', yeah?" In the Sahara, anything was possible.
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 11:33 pm
Satisfied, he went back to cleaning himself up as best he could, tilting his head under the shower head and sighing in a mixture of relief and satisfaction. "Nothing but some peeling skin later," he replied. "But I did manage to secure one of my clones in the process."
It was hard to tell through the door, but there was an expectant pause.
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 11:35 pm
Chel made a face at the skin peeling and said, "Gross." Completely ignoring the fact that she too turned into a peeling tomato with too much sun exposure.
"Wha?" Chel exclaimed with a mixture of surprise and a hint of worry. "That's ... great? That's good, right?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 11:56 pm
"That's <******** awesome you mean," he corrected her with more enthusiasm. "A bonus for doing so damn good. You should've seen me, Chel, I was hitting like a ******** sun against a horseman and then these two clones..." Whether or not she listened, he extolled proudly his efforts into keeping the clone safe and then escaping the beetles as he finished cleaning himself.
Finally he stepped out, a towel at his waist and another tousling his hair. The same little smile he wore in the infirmary was present. "Now you can go."
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Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 12:02 am
She felt relief in a way that would have been difficult to explain to someone out loud. The last time someone went on a dangerous mission she had almost lost them to a crazed shapeshifter in the mountains, and Chris had come back changed. He tried to pretend nothing was different, but Chel could tell from the way that he looked at her hands every time she approached him. There was something off, but it wasn't her place to pry.
So to see Jack coming out of her bathroom like it was a regular afternoon was what was really ******** awesome. It was a subtle reminder that not everything they did was pessimistic in nature.
"Y'look good," she told him, and it was the truth. He looked better because of the enthusiasm and confidence he held, not because of any external feature. There was a small hesitation as she debated blurting herself out then and there (mixed with the anticipation of a touch of her side or a particular look or something dammit), but it was smashed under humor. "But I only got two towels," she told him, yanking the one he was using to dry his hair. "Don't go anywhere, kay? Tell me the rest through the door." With that she left to steal what was rightfully hers.
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Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 12:19 am
He made an annoyed noise with the loss of his towel (her towel, whatever), but it didn't diminish his overall cheer. He did look good: after all, he was a man who had gotten to steal from the Sahara instead of the other way around for once.
"Not much else beyond that," he continued after the door closed, slumping onto the couch. Jack made a conscious decision not to squeeze water onto the cushions despite the petty impulse and tugged all his hair over one shoulder to dry instead. "Techs had to pry me off him, I was that ******** done with the desert. Or the sun had just fried us together sunny side up." He actually made a lame joke. That was something. "I got lost and hallucinated s**t for a while too, but that was before we found the clones."
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Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 12:22 am
"You got a knack for seein' s**t that ain't there y'know?" she told him over the sound of the shower starting up again. She admittedly rushed through her shower with eagerness that she shouldn't have had (desperation was one of her least desired qualities).
"Sounds like you kicked a**. What you do with the clone?" Her eyes narrowed and she added, "Hey wait, you didn't say the magic password."
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