kore_logs | say you'll be better, i'll keep waiting forever

Somewhere between all the chaos with Ned and dealing with the body, Laura has managed to duck away from everyone and get some space for herself. She can't think of anywhere else to go, so it's not long before she's making a very focused beeline for the house. The broken lock freaks her out more than anything today, and as soon as she's inside she slams the door behind her forcefully.

There's blood all over her shirt still, more than she'd realised at first. Part of her needs it gone right now, but it's been a long day and she's having a hard time logically thinking anything through. Instead of walking into her room, or even finding a new shirt, she just stays at the front door with her back firmly pressed to the back of it, grabbing the hem and rubbing her hand hard against the stain as though that's going to do anything at all.

Like hell she's going to spend her time alone right now. He knows directly where she's going to be heading, follows her right suit with his own shock still crawling in his system like an itch, all over but nothing he can do about it. His grimace feels too tight on his face when he tries to push open the door, expecting to find Laura in her room when she gets back here. But the door has something heavy against it, like some girl's got her back pressed against it.

Jesse doesn't force it open, just lays his palms flat against the wood and rests his forehead between them, a slow sigh escaping his lips before he speaks. "Laura." A beat, and then, "Open up."

There's definitely a lot of temptation to ignore him. Granted, it's kind of an dick move to just shut him out when he lives there too, but she's hardly the poster child for rational decisions in that moment. It doesn't last though. It takes a minute or two, long and drawn out as she scrubs away at her shirt with the heel of her hand, but finally she gives up. It's not going anywhere, and neither is he, so she steps back and tugs the door open sharply.

"Sorry dude, I just had to-" For a second there she manages to flawlessly replicate her usual casual demeanour, but it's in no way sustainable. She trips over a word, her smile falters, and then she just shrugs and steps back. Her arms cross over her chest in a half assed attempt to cover up her shirt, and she tips her head towards her room before turning away. "I need to go...change, or- I don't know. Something."

There's a long wait, where Jesse practices what patience he does have, stands outside the door with his hands stuck in his pockets - shaking, they're still shaking, but he's going to ignore that - listens carefully to her doing whatever she's doing inside. He's too worried about her to really let anything else get in the way right now, a little too attached already than he should be. But shit, she just fuckin' died. She died and then undied very abruptly and if that doesn't fuck up someone's head, he doesn't know what will.

Hell, it's fucking with his head and he didn't even have to go through with it.

He's just about to rap his knuckles against the door again when it opens, his hand raised, and he swallows thickly at the sight of all that blood, holds up his hands in placation as he regards how scared she is above all. "Whoa, hey, it's all right. Hey," and he eases his hands towards her, carefully setting them on her shoulders, comforting, but also meaning to try to direct her towards her room. "Let's get you some new clothes. Huh? One step atta time."

It might have been a little harder to notice when she was just standing in front of him, but with his hands on her shoulders there's no way Jesse can miss the way Laura's still shaking. She's trying so hard to stop it, God knows she's trying, but no matter how tense she holds her muscles or how much she mentally tries to talk herself out of it, the shaking won't subside.

It's enough of a sign that she's still on the verge of a meltdown that she almost wants to push his hands away. Jesse's seen more of her breaking down than most people in her life, but that doesn't make her any more comfortable with it. Thinking about pushing him away and actually doing it are two very different things though, and as much as she wants to freak out in solitude she can't quite make herself do it. He's taking the reins, giving some direction when she can't quite manage them herself.

"Okay. ...Okay, yeah." There's a small nod, and then another with a little more conviction. New clothes are definitely the first item on the list. Then maybe she'll burn the ones she's currently wearing, because getting rid of any reminder seems like a flawless idea right now. She turns slightly, slow enough that maybe she'll get to keep some of the contact. Turns out that maybe she's almost relying on it a little now.

The pile of destruction isn't really a deterrent for Laura as she steers them towards the park. There's nothing really here any more, but it's the opposite side of town and that's the main reason why she's steered Jet in this direction. It's as far away as she can get. However irrational it is to think that the further away she is from the scene of the crime the safer she is - well, that's beside the point. She knows that. That doesn't mean it doesn't make her feel better.

"It used to be really pretty here," she comments with a slight sigh, gesturing vaguely at the broken benches before approaching one that wasn't too bad. She brushes some dirt off of the top of the table, then settles herself down on the edge lightly. With a small shrug, she tips her head towards the spot next to her, and rests her chin in her hand lightly. "Kinda wrecked now. I like it still, though, I guess."

It might be irrational, but Jet Star is well aquainted with irrational. He doesn't mind where they go - and honestly, he'd prefer to be far away from that scene as well. He can still feel the remains of how sharply his heart had stopped, shattered, and come back together again when he'd seen her fall. He's maybe a little lost in that as they walk, lost in his own memories of watching his boys fall, gunshots, bright flashing lights - so when Laura speaks up, he startles slightly.

"... There's beauty in the wrecked things, too," Jet offers, settling down at the spot that Laura indicates. "Sometimes the most broken object, the most broken idea, or the most broken person - sometimes those are the most beautiful."

He stares out at the broken benches. "It's all about perception."

"Beauty in imperfection. Makes sense."

It's easy to miss how rarely Laura gets unfocused and faraway until it actually happens. When she answers Jet, it's quiet and distracted. She's still gazing over the wrecked park and it's clear that she's not really all there. After a moment she shakes her head, runs her hand over her face slowly and glances at him with a small smile.

"It's never going to go back the way it was before though. They're fixing it up, right?" She shrugs, shoulders hunching as she stares down at her hands. So maybe her metaphors aren't nearly as subtle as Jet's can be. In fact, she's pretty terrible at it. She has pretty much the best excuse for being scatter brained right now, though.

"Even if they all plough through, clean up and rebuild everything, it's not going to be like it used to be."

He's concerned about how she's unfocused. Death is a heavy thing, and he knows how upset she was about it, how traumatizing it is to die. Jet doesn't want this for her - he wishes it hadn't ever happened. And when she's less than subtle about her metaphors, Jet frowns and reaches, rubbing her back very gently.

"Nothing ever really is," Jet tells her gently. "Rebuilding is a change, for good or for worse. The foundations can be made stronger, though. It's an... evolution. And it can be twice as beautiful when it's finished, given that the proper amount of love is given to the project."

He's not so subtle either, really.

She keeps it together. She keeps it together when he rubs her back, when he starts to talk, she keeps it together through 'rebuilding' and 'evolution' and she near on keeps it together through the whole damn speech. But it hits, eventually it hits and somewhere between mentions of 'beautiful' and 'love' a lump rises in her throat, and she shakes her head quickly. He needs to stop, stop talking or stop with the comforting touches or something because she's barely holding on.

It's Jet though, and Jet has seen her break down more times now than any member of her family, any close friend back home. Besides, they're all dead now, so who does she have left? Only the friends she's managed to collect here, and who knows how long that will last. That's what tips her over, more than anything. She could have died here, and there's not a soul left on her world who would have missed her. Anyone who would have noticed is stuck here too. She may as well be dead already.

It starts off small, just a sharp intake of breath, and then it's like the flood gates burst. Laura turns sharply, abruptly, and throws her arms around his neck. Pulling Jet in close, she all but buries her face in his shoulder and lets it all out. Her chest heaves, shoulders shake, and she sobs into his shoulder because she can't quite face the idea of looking at him now. Not like this.

Oh, oh. That's what he was waiting for, and he exhales slow, expression pained when she isn't looking at him. It's a little awful how quickly he's let her in, and he knows there's probably consequences for it, but she's been a saving grace for him a few times already. Jet feels as though at least some of his sanity remaining after the ordeal of trying to find Kobra and Party is owed to both her and Jesse, and he's grateful for it.

She throws herself into his arms and he holds her close, tightly, letting her cry. She needs to. And Jet has no room or desire to judge. He just stays where he is, rubbing her back gently. "It's okay, mija, sweet. Let it out," Jet says softly, resting his head against hers.

There's kind of no holding it back once she lets that out, it just keeps coming and it's for everything. She's not just crying because of what happened yesterday, she's crying because of every damn thing that has happened since she arrived. No, longer than that, since the virus first hit and wiped out every person she's so much as spoken to. All of them, gone, and then from that desolate wasteland to this town that's not much better.

At least here she has someone to hold her while she cries though, and she's so incredibly thankful for that. Eventually it slows, quiet sobs become quiet sniffs, and she pulls back just a little to look at him. There's so much she needs to say, so many things to thank him for and how is she even supposed to begin to find the words to express just how much every little thing that he does means to her?

She can't, so she doesn't. Instead - and it's such a spur of the moment decision that Laura doesn't even realise she's going to do it until it happens - she leans in, and instead of trying to explain anything at all, she just presses her lips to his and kisses him.

She's nothing if not persistent, and there's few things that can spur someone into decision making quite like dying, so all in all it really doesn't take long to convince Clint that showing her how to make her own arrows it a good idea.

...Granted, she still needs to learn how to shoot the damn things, but one step at a time.

Still, determination can get a person a long way, and in Laura's case it gets her into Clint's attic, kicking the door shut behind her as she folds her arms over her chest. She does take a moment to offer a sweet enough smile, but more than anything she's interested in picking up a decent skill here. Gesturing vaguely with one of her hands, she finds the nearest wall to lean on as she looks at him.

"Okay, so. Hi and stuff. Now how do we do this?"

Clint's fine with teaching her how to make arrows. That's okay by him. He's actually happy to help these people survive if he can, but he's not a hundred percent sure difficult it'll be. He doesn't know her learning capabilities. Most of the recruits he taught how to do things were from a group he could weed through. They could look at dossier's and get information on who they were training. This was different.

"You are so bad at knocking." He didn't bother to look up from his mattress and the arrow he was fiddling with. He got his hands on a knife of some sort early on and from then it was pretty easy to widdle his own arrows from the wood he found around. This was his wheelhouse. He still had the arrows he brought with him. These were just backups.

Finally he put the half finished arrow down and stood up from the bed. He pushed his sleeves up and nodded to her. "Go sit and I'll let you finish that one up. I'll give you something to go off of."

"Not the first time I've heard that." And yeah, maybe she should get this whole knocking deal down, but it's hardly a priority for her. On the list of skills to learn, being non-invasive in her entering of rooms is way down the list.

She pushes off the wall and drops down onto the bed though, slumping back lazily as she picks up the half finished arrow, and she inspects it closely for a moment or two before she nods. "Alright, this doesn't look too hard."

She sits up a little straighter, holding out her hand to him quickly and looks around the room for a moment or two. "Knife?"

So maybe it's slightly slipped her mind about the whole 'no human food' thing, it's been a bit of a busy week. She's made two cups of tea and one is for him, and when she heads into the room backwards with two cups in her hand, she has a pretty forced smile on her face.

"How're you doing? I haven't seen you in like-" A day "...Whatever. You alright?"

She grins, walks over and sits down comfortably on the bed before holding out the mug towards him, and it's about then that she pauses. A frown crosses her face, and she shakes her head a little. "Oh man, I am such an idiot. You can't even drink this, can you? I am...a huge jerk, sorry."

"Hey--"

Conrad is this close to snapping at her when she comes in uninvited, but when he sees that she's brought tea - even though he can't drink it - he sort of wilts a little. That's... nice of her.

At the very least, he looks a lot better than he did before, now that he's gotten blood donation things sorted out with that doctor. He puts down his book and sits up, scratching sheepishly underneath one of the arms of his glasses.

"Oh, no... it's all right." Gnawing at his lip a little, he reaches over and takes the mug anyway. "Thanks. I'm -- fine, how are you?"

"I just- wow, how did I forget, I should've thought about that..."

She runs a hand over her face, sighing quietly. The thing is, she doesn't really have a legitimate excuse to be around, bothering him. It's late though, everyone else is probably asleep, but every time she goes to lie down and sleep she sees guns and blood. Clearly the solution here is just not sleeping.

She hovers a moment, then just sits down and blows on her own mug for a moment. Staring down at the rim isn't the same as answering though, so after a moment she shrugs and laughs, tucking her hair back behind her ear. "Yeah, dude. I'm good. Fine. You look less dead, that's pretty good."

She's...really not so good at playing fine.

Conrad considers getting one of his blood bags and mixing it with the tea, like Worth did with his coffee, but the thought sort of grosses him out, so there's no telling how grossed out Laura might be. So he sits the mug on his folded legs and stares into it for a moment. Laura seems kind of... off, but hell if he knows what to say.

"Er, thanks. You look --" Honesty? Oh no, honesty wants to come out. He can't say she looks good. She probably knows what she looks like. He edges on the word for a moment before just tumbling off: "-- ... ter...rible... actually? Is something wrong?"

She doesn't even have the heart to look offended at that. It's true, after all. She might not be covered in blood any more, but yesterday's events are pretty clearly weighing heavily on her still. She would keep brushing it off, but something makes her stop just short of blurting out another dismissive comment.

Conrad is a vampire. Ergo, Conrad died before too, and now he's alive again. As in, Conrad's been through this before too, and maybe he might be a little better at understanding her situation than most. She holds the mug for a moment, hovering halfway between her lap and her mouth as she weighs up her options, and then she leans forward to set it down. Shifting slightly to face him, there's another awkward moment where she doesn't quite know what to say. How are you supposed to explain something like that, anyway?

Finally she just heaves in a large breath, shakes her head and then blurts out in one quick stream, "IkindofdiedyesterdayandnowI'mback."

And just like that her hands are shaking all over again, because she really, really isn't fine with that.

say you'll be better, i'll keep waiting forever

Day 56 - Jesse Pinkman - House 13

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Late 56/Early 57 - Jet Star - Park

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Day 57 - Clint Barton - House 20

no subject

no subject

Late 57/Early 58 - Conrad Achenleck - House 13

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject