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 Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 7:47 pm
take a deep breath
Chel took Jack up on his offer of staying at his house for the night. His place was close, Mel didn't have a place and Shun wasn't in a condition to give her a ride home to Chris'. She knew she should have given Mel a call, but it was exhausting enough to explain to Chris.
Yes I was there. No m'fine. M'stayin' at Jack's. Haw- yeah.
Let alone navigating the minefield of "hey I know we're dating but I'm staying at a guy's place instead of you."
She was silent for the walk back, eyes glazed as they both needed a moment to breathe. When they walked in, she still said nothing, but she at least looked at him now, unsure of what to say but wanting desperately to say something.
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 8:11 pm
take a deep breath
He didn't remember exactly if they had stopped to be interrogated or not. The night seemed to be a blur after watching the last were get tossed into that portal. One minute the third floor of Rider-Waite library, the next out into the night with Chel eyeing him, chomping at the bit and yet also drained at the same time.
Jack wondered what they looked like, bloodied as they were. A paramedic had forced him to stop long enough to get some bandages applied, which thankfully masked some of the nastiness he would need to wipe off in a scalding hot shower. But his punching hand was throbbing now from the overuse, and he kept rubbing at it with a wince.
Shortly after the door closed behind them, he finally spoke up. "Want something to drink?"
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 8:35 pm
take a deep breath
"M'fine," she said, eyes staring off somewhere farther away than the coffee table they were fixed on. She trodded with a soldier's cadence to his couch and sat herself down. Her hair was wiry, matted to the side of her face from sweat and dried blood.
She knew she should have asked for a shower (You don't smell do you?) but her body was stiff, alien. She was living another Chel's life and her flesh had yet to settle in place.
"Are you okay?" she asked. If Jack was keeping track, it was the fourth time she'd asked.
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 8:42 pm
take a deep breath
I'm fine and I'm fine and I'm fine finally became, "I need a drink."
He wasn't a habitual drinker--half because he was paranoid his parents would one day snoop in his fridge, half because it racked up in price if her started leaning on it. Spice rum and Coke would have to do. He began to forage for a glass.
Jack's pants felt like they were slipping down. His belt was gone and he had no hips. And now his couch might get blood stained. And the carpet. His shoes. His clothes. His clothes.
He pulled out the wallet from his pocket as well as the host of letters from the second body and let them sit on the counter in a bloody heap, then turned the sink on to wash his hands for a solid minute.
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 8:48 pm
take a deep breath
Chel didn't even want the drink. She wasn't sure what she wanted. To not feel numb, maybe.
"You kept those?" she asked quietly. It seemed morbid, almost. They were a dead man's things.
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 9:13 pm
take a deep breath
"Yeah."
Coke...rum...He poured a good portion of each and began to drink, leaning over the kitchen sink just in case. Jack too was numb, but that didn't mean he wanted to contribute to the mess by, say, vomiting without warning.
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 9:17 pm
take a deep breath
"D'you wanna talk?" She wasn't sure she wanted to, but she felt like she could. Their shared experience felt calming somehow.
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 9:18 pm
take a deep breath
Jack set the glass down and finally looked at her, and the exhaustion began to weigh down his normally quite modulated voice. "What do you want to start with?"
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 9:21 pm
take a deep breath
"I ... don't know." She didn't want to start with any of it honestly. She wanted to chalk that up to a bad trip, a bad dream, too much Taco Bell- something.
But for Jack's sake, she tried to pretend like it could be reasoned with. "I never seen a dead body before." In movies and media and history, sure. Not with her own eyes.
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 9:24 pm
take a deep breath
"Me neither. Smells worse up close."
He glanced at the bloody pile on the counter.
"I don't know why I took those. Guess for the same reason I took photos. Try to preserve some of it." Those two had been students at Rider-Waite. They could have just as easily been someone they knew. Or they themselves.
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 9:26 pm
take a deep breath
"Why would you want to preserve that?" she asked tiredly, trying to push back some her hair like it would actually do anything.
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 9:30 pm
take a deep breath
"Because it's human nature to try and make sense of the nonsense," he replied with a different sort of tiredness, the kind that came from dealing with skeptics. "When this all blows over, the majority of people are probably going to chalk it up to something more likely than a ******** were, even if it's a stretch. These photos, this evidence--I'm not letting it get buried."
The truth bruised as it was, but he wasn't one to shy away from it and never had been.
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 9:35 pm
take a deep breath
His explanation had her head spinning and she leaned into the side of the couch, eyebrows knit. "M'one of those people," she said in a tone that sounded like she'd just gotten the wind knocked out of her.
"What the ******** ..."
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 9:52 pm
take a deep breath
He sighed through his nose and continued to drink. When he was almost finished, he ambled towards the couch, peeling his jacket off and tossing it back into the sink to deal with later.
"You can use the shower," he told Chel. Presumably after him, since Jack was already making his way towards it like a zombie.
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Posted: Thu May 26, 2016 12:59 am
take a deep breath
"Okay," she said quietly, not really registering what he was saying. Shower. Right. Needed to do that.
She put her head in her hands and tried to breathe.
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