Independent portrayal of Kevin Ryman of Resident Evil: Outbreak, penned by Syd.
Pinned art by Arma @/egoiudico.
Rules:
I follow back from @/yradianydell. This is a sideblog.
I’m 30+, He/They, and go by Syd.
I don’t typically RP stuff of a explicit sexual nature, however, for my own comfort, I prefer to RP with people who are 21+.
Zero-tolerance for any OOC queer-phobia, ableism, racism, Zionism, or sexism here. Mun is mixed indigenous. No one is entitled to my medical history or ancestry.
I use dice/D&D as writing tools for probability, chance, and skill check mechanics. If that bothers you, DNI. I will add rules as I find necessary
"Perhaps you can." He responds calmly as he notices the man before him start to shift, maybe self conscious of his actions.
In his pocket, he procures an ID that has been forged for this situation, and holds it out to the man. "I was told to approach the investigative team at RCPD about the matter."
It's an FBI badge.
How Umbrella was convinced that this was a good plan was beyond him, but he doesn't question his orders, he simply performs them. The badge lists the name of the man.
John Miller.
"Certain incidences have been occurring on the Arklay forest border between the United States and Canada. Recently there was an incident in Canada of someone from the Arklay forest entering their country without identification, and attacking someone. They were deeply rotted by the time they were killed. The citizen was American in origin."
"These problems are being elevated as a result of the case becoming international. This is a federal case now. I need you to fill me in on what exactly is going on with these... rotting people. Any casework or information you have at all."
Kevin looked at the badge in the man's hand and examined it. It certainly looked legit. Pictures, dates, signature of the current FBI director.
John Miller.
There's a million Millers and Muellers in Raccoon City, Kurt used to joke. Maybe this guy was local. After all, the Midwest Office HQ wasn't that far away from the city.
Still, there was something making Kevin uneasy about this interraction. A sudden reminder of his dead friend was one thing. A federal agent showing up here was another.
Sure, if crimes crossed state and international lines, they became federal cases.
But he was talking about things that hadn't been made public. RPD's press statement had cautioned first against hiking alone and attributed the initial deaths to bear attacks. Then, people were found with lacerations matching human teeth.
And then there were insane people half-rotting that attacked anything that moved. No one was told about that.
And then this incident from the border... if this person didn't have identification, how could they be so sure they were American without a bunch of hoopla searching for records to identify John or Jane Doe? Surely, (and don't call me Shirley) a missing persons inquiry would have been made to all the border settlements- and Kevin watched those like a hawk.
They still hadn't identified the woman who washed up on Cedar from the Marble River, on the twentieth of May and it was almost halfway through June.
Somethin' ain't right.
Still, he didn't have anything other than his gut to go off of.
So he hummed thoughtfully with a slight smile, as if he wasn't at all perturbed by the little inconsistencies.
"So, the feds are finally helping us out, huh? You'd think with all Umbrella's funding and tax money we wouldn't be so stretched thin. I'm Kevin Ryman, police detective."
His smile became a little more broad.
"My direct supervisor is Deputy Chief, Raymond Douglas. I'd love to help ya, but I can't really do much without my boss sayin' it's alright to release that info. Above my paygrade. Though, you're certainly just as informed as we are, it seems. The necrosis on the perpetrators hasn't been made public yet."
Her diagnosis had been a scrambled egg. She had a bleeding noggin, half a mind at the moment. Thoughts sure did connect a lot more slowly, and the complete ones she had that weren't devoted to keeping her breathing in Kevin's car while he sparked the end of a Newport and cracked his window, were occupied with Kurt. Kurt dead, Kurt around, or what they would do or could do today. She had planned on making something for him today. The groceries were still fresh in his fridge while the plan rotted through. There was this overwhelming loss of something to do. She didn't say anything much to Kevin about it, just cranked his radio on low volume so he could focus on driving through the on-off rain. The familiar claustrophobic dilapidation of Campbell fell behind with Kurt's coffee cup.
There was the appropriate weather for her mood.
The rain dusted her suitcase when they arrived and climbed his stairs, too. He confidently grabbed his keys.
And confidently broke his key in the lock of the door. It was so... appropriate for the day that she let out a stormcloud sigh that sounded a thousand pounds heavy, and pulled her picks from her jacket pocket. The old leather pouch she kept them in still smelled like river.
She couldn't crouch much without feeling like gravity was going to yank her down and kill her, so she settled on stooping (awkward), and fishing a pick into the keyway to tease the pins like a mean lover. She popped the broken bit of key out with a sharp tug, and filched a thin tipped tool into it to turn without scuffing the metal. The entire affair took a few minutes, and no more, and by the end of it, she was exhausted.
"You have the shittiest luck," she griped, pulling herself into his apartment. The rain on the building walls beat down a little harder. They were in for the day, the night, and foreseeable future. She couldn't move without agitation, and couldn't really think without thinking about coulda, woulda, shoulda's that made her body feel like it had been hollowed out.
And so she quietly took her shoes off, and began to pace in slow motion.
"Rain today. Rain tomorrow. Rain the next day," she cleared her throat, adapting a cadence for herself, "– And Saturday we're going to see some cloudy skies so save your errands for that day, people. Next week on Monday we'll see some of that beautiful sun–"
She postured near the window, gesturing at it with her finger to bring up imaginary weather systems to lighten her own mood if anything. Punctuated with a broadcast smile she made reach her eyes somehow. It thundered behind her, as if on cue, and it began to pour cats, dogs, and every animal in the zoo.
"Until then, trapped inside, This just in– I'm outta here~."
Trapped inside. Wasn't that the truth? She let her arms hang and tipped her head back to inhale, and exhale. She had a head that was far too full and crushed too hard at the same time. Her body didn't agree with her head.
"I feel nuts," she muttered, to nobody really, and moved again, to pace slowly to his bedroom.
Luck really was a neutral thing to Kevin. The way his luck shaped out, something bad took a swing at him, and something good hit back. Today, for whatever reason, the usual pendulum of fortune was swinging rapidly like someone pushed the sliding weight down to the base of a metronome.
He'd come home, refreshed from the menthol and the chemical relief to calm his nerves and ease his mood, and broke his key in his door. Lucky for him Alyssa was here.
And lucky for him, she was starting to play around a little, pulling the weather lady persona out to entertain them both.
Kevin plopped down on the couch, letting his head fall back on the rest. He was done with stairs and luggage for now- and had no urge to move.
"Well, I actually found the last key I lost-" he says, pointing to the wall-hanging coat rack by the door, "It was on the ground in the parking garage at RPD. So, I don't have to bother my landlord about it again so soon. Ha, isn't that wacky?"
Kevin let his arm fall, and took a deep breath. His chest rose, and deflated with an audible sigh.
What an exhausting day. Exhausting two days. He was glad to not have to come in to work that night for the next week... even if he wasn't going to get paid for this time.
It'd suck for rent at the beginning of next month, but he could manage. He always did, somehow.
"So, whatcha want to do for the next few days, since it's gonna be rainy. You feel like movies, music, sleep...?"
There was a very real probability that whatever she wanted to do would wear her out quick anyway. Sleep, he figured, was going to be most of her time here.
"Like anybody's gonna come on over and say that's illegal? You think anybody has money for a lawyer? You think this guy won't just pull the prostitute card and get em' carted like a body? Nah. He ain't gonna evict me anyways or I'll call his wife about the cheating."
Her landlord was about as all bark as you could get who got his rocks off from being outside the burning houses all the community members were in. He was the kind of guy who loved Warren's election to mayor and hated little dogs that walked with their elderly owners in the courtyard. Hated the dogs and the elderly with the same amount of passion, too. He was a balding man, all the hair on him going to cover his chin,neck, and chest. He smelled like caramel candies from a sticky jar and cheap cologne, and wore these ugly print dress shirts every day.
One of her friends had been fucking him for the last six years for a steady salary. He owned three complexes on South Campbell and maintained zero of them. Half her paycheck, at the very least, was going into the pocket of someone who actually worked for it.
But her landlord wasn't anybody important right now. Right now he was defined by a obligation, and she didn't want to stick around her nest for longer than usual. Kurt's things were still here. His computer was plugged in and charging at her desk. His stupid Mr. Raccoon Cup was left there with a thin film of coffee cold and still on the bottom. Day old coffee or a corpse: which one went cold faster?
She washed it without thinking twice about it, and set his cup beside the red one she liked using, like he'd walk through the door and pick it up before starting the day.
He left some of his clothes here. A pair of sneakers was left by her door. One of his blankets he couldn't sleep easy without was still on her bed, folded over the two pillows at the head.
Alyssa, check in hand, stopped mid through heading to her door to double back, and collect it like she was collecting an injured bird. Alyssa draped it over her shoulders while she pulled the handle of her suitcase out and gestured with both hands for him to knock himself out.
"No. I got it."
Down was easier than up.
Not much easier though. Distance and disorientation made the stairs a slow go, and by the time she made it to the bottom the plants in the windows at each level had grown another couple of inches. Someone's mint had already colonized neighboring flowerpots by the time her feet hit ground level.
"ASHCROFT," a bulbous voice broke her concentration and sent a stab in her head that rattled her sinuses so hard she felt nauseous. Cold, rainy air wafted through the screens of open windows, and the five-six nightmare shape of her landlord, Jorge Fleck, stood at the lobby entrance with a burning cigarette in one hand and a pile of rain-soaked envelopes in the other.
"–What!" she croaked, a lot less intimidating than she wanted it to be. The check in her hand had ink smeared over her thumb. It saved her a trip to him, or the post office, at the very least. Even ground wasn't as hard to walk on. She forked the paper over before she even had another word to say to him.
"Jesus Christ, woman. Stop cutting it so fucking close! I got bills to pay! People work for me, you know!"
Host of other things she didn't catch.
"Yeah, yeah, what-the-fuck-ever."
She looked over her shoulder to spot her valet. There Kevin Ryman was, at the bottom of the stairs with her stuff. He looked like shit. He was low shouldered. He was exhausted. He didn't have to help her, but he did anyways.
Jorge was saying something and she wasn't listening. Milk box missing flyers covered the wall at the front of the lobby, the space more glue than paint. Maybe she'd make one for Kurt, just to have it.
The cigarette machine was well loved, beside the reason to use it at the door.
Kevin nodded grimly. No one had money for a lawyer, public defense was notoriously bad, and the legal system favored landlords over tenants.
One small silver-lining he could get from this conversation though, was that Alyssa had enough energy to bite and hypothetically threaten her landlord with private humiliation if he ever sought to go that route. She still was very low-energy compared to her normal levels, but it was nice to see a little bit of spirit return.
Even while a bit of Kurt's spirit seemed to linger around her place.
A lot of things that Kevin recognized as belonging to him, or frequently used by him were still there. Coffee cup, laptop- the scene set for the remnants of an early morning breakfast for those two before they'd have to go to work.
Alyssa tidied up a small amount, and let Kevin take her stuff down the six flights of stairs while she held her check to post, and it wasn't long before Kevin got confirmation just how much of an asshole this guy was.
Kevin bit his tongue. Quiet fury shook him at the shoulder, and it took every fiber of his tense being not to give that guy a tongue lashing for how callous he was being. Anyone could see the bandages. Anyone could see that she was injured.
But Alyssa handled her own verbal sparring. There wasn't any need for him to get involved and make it worse for her. It wasn't worth it to lose his cool.
God, I need a cigarette.
Kevin turned his attention to the carton vending machine. Packs of cigarettes were on display with slots for quarters to release them. At two dollars and fifty cents, they definitely would have been cheaper at the corner store, but this was the price of convenience.
Kevin tuned out the yelling between Alyssa and her landlord, and pulled out a film canister from his jeans pocket. He had probably twenty of these little canisters meant for storing film just holding on to change and small trinkets. He pressed the gray, plastic cap off with his thumb, and started to count out ten quarters, then placing each into the slot one-by-one until all ten quarters were accepted.
He pulled out the knob for a pack of Newports, and in a moment, the machine spat out a carton- two cartons- in the trough.
Oh, what luck, Kevin perked up, swiping both the cartons (now altogether cheaper than grabbing them at the corner store), and looked for the little matchbook that was supposed to dispense alongside it.
... figures. That's empty. Just my luck... at least there's a lighter in the Camry.
He sighed, pinching at his brow as if to grab the headache between his eyes, and let himself go when he heard Alyssa approach. Kevin straightened up, glancing at her and how she was carrying herself. Tired, slow.
"Two for the price of one," he said, flashing a carton at her, "But the matches are out. Ready to ditch this place for a bit?"
The guy who addressed him was familiar enough in appearance to make the detective pause and think: where have I seen this guy before?
In passing at one of the few haunts Kevin had, maybe. Maybe J's Bar, or the movies. But he couldn't quite place him.
"Nah," he answered, placing his hand behind his head somewhat abashed, "Just thought I knew you from somewhere's all."
After a beat, he remembered that he was in uniform, and a cop thinking they know someone from somewhere wasn't the most comforting statement he could make. Kevin lowered his hand, perking up with a reassuring smile for this guy that seemed stiff.
"Sorry, it's nothin'. Anything I can help you with today, sir?"
The most frustrating part about night shifts was that even after you'd worked your ass off for eight, ten, or twelve hours, you were still expected to make accommodations for people in the day time.
That's what Kevin was quietly grumbling about, sipping a coffee at two in the afternoon. He'd worked ten hours at the RPD, pencil pushing and organizing case files that he'd been working. Repetition sometimes was soothing, but last night, it was nothing short of mental torture.
He'd barely had time to rendezvous with Alyssa, who'd been staying at his place, before she had to get dressed to go to her latest gig, with the reminder that the water pressure in the shower was terrible, the sinks and toilet weren't any better.
Kevin had known already. He put in a call for it several times, and the landlord only the day before got around to answering him back, telling him to let in the maintenance guy around two to take a look.
There was no point trying to sleep. He didn't want to chance missing the appointment after it took so long just to get an answer out of his landlord.
Kevin changed into pajamas for comfort and occupied himself by nursing a coffee, and tuning in to Alyssa's program with the RNN that day, doing a special on bull sharks in an aquarium, and by the docks of the city. Something their local football team was named after.
Kevin startled when he finally heard the knock, and set his mug down to go answer.
He was visibly surprised to see David of all people- someone that he knew Alyssa had been familiar with, but he never seemed to get much of a chance to talk for one reason or another.
"David?" his expression brightened, "David! I was wondering who was getting sent over. Come on in, can I get you a coffee or something?"
RC Parking lot. Kevin telling Rookie cop Leon to stay in the car, Leon thinking they're there for something important, but no, Kev's just there to meet up with Alyssa.
He would have been a fun teacher. Too bad the education system (and particularly university and higher ed) is actively hostile to poor minorities.
In my canon he did go to school out-of-state on a scholarship, but the money ran out quick with the economic crisis that would have been in full swing when he was trying to complete his bachelor's degree.
Criminal Justice was an easy swap, because it was already his minor, and after graduation he had to apply to the police academy in Raccoon City, under the impression that a degree would give him a little of a higher salary (it didn't).
RP Wishlist:
Pre-Outbreak:
I'd love to do some stuff in Raccoon City before the outbreak, establishing relations with other RPD characters, STARS from '96 onward, and civilian connections. Establish the broader Arklay area and culture from all walks.
Outbreak:
The downtime between scenarios, and establishing dynamics when the characters have to rest and have to figure out how to escape the city and deal with the changes that are happening because of their infection, as well as the secrets uncovered.
Post-Outbreak:
The Raccoon City trials. Independent investigations and search and rescue, dealing with outbreaks. What it means to be an RC Survivor outside of the Main 5.
I do want to also establish something with Leon because a few of Kevin's localized items and dialogue make references to him, however I am still irritated by my Ada being mass followed, then unfollowed/blocked by Leons when I said I wasn't interested in that dynamic with her because I've had bad experiences with people following me for shipping, even when I said I was open to playing with Leons on my other blogs.
Woah! Grace had never seen something like that before! And it looks nothing like those small areas where stones and rocks were used as a decoration for some reason.
Her tiny hand had gone to accept the offer as her fingers slid across the surface of this black weathered stone. "What's this?" Grace asked.
" S'called a 'worry stone'," Kevin explains, "It's made from tumbling rocks until they're smooth and carving and polishing them until they get that shape."
It's one of the things he picked up to replace the habit of smoking. Something else for his hands to fidget with that wasn't likely to increase his risks of getting terminally sick.
"They said the rock is 'onyx' but I think it's just dyed agate," he mused, "I don't mind, I thought it was neat."
Jump ropes hit the ground outside in the wired-off courtyard. The one with a hole in the fencing that lets the neighborhood dog weave though, a thin licorice whip of a red and black hound with a drooling face.
It had been on-off raining in Raccoon City the entire night, the clouds looking like black sheep or a solid black herringbone blanket.
Campbell Street was busy in the interim between bouts of heavy rain. The usual crew was telling each other how shit they were on the basketball court. Since South Campbell Street rode sidesaddle to the police station like a glitzy dame, from the rooftop, aspiring police captains could wave to the massage parlors they kept arresting people out of as beat cops. Hot women were plastered on advertisements in shop fronts, some topless, some just flashing ass. Her pinup had been covered by two years worth of newer hookers and brush on adhesive.
And this was another day in the neighborhood, sure. The only things missing from the scene was her bravado and dignity. The remainders of those traits were physical things.
Her apartment was a studio square with metal sheets thrown up to make her living space intentionally minuscule. What could she say? The rent was reasonable and she had a shower. Most of her space was occupied by her well-made bed, a full size thing with nice ocher sheets and a red bed skirt. Her clothes were free standing on stolen department store racks (a fourth job she'd held seasonally), hanging from metal hangers and organized by "type". They were boundaries to her space, sitting alongside her collection of consigned and thrift-ed pumps. The racks separated the tiny kitchen and tiny fridge she had, her food space sitting under a naked yellow light-bulb from the view of her bed.
It was frigid in here with the May rains. It would've been appropriate to cry in this kind of weather, but her tears had taken a leave of absence for most of her life, and didn't seem to be returning any time soon. What it left was an emptiness in her that didn't fit the part backstage, part bedroom space that was supposed to be hers.
Alyssa wrote a check for rent on her rickety old desk the hanging light above her head flickering like her ideas were burning out and nascent before she could really put words to them. Newspapers were plastered all over the corkboard in front of her, and pictures of her, Kurt, and them existing in a world that she felt like she was abruptly ripped away from.
Birds can die from heartbreak, or something. One of them dies, the other follows by falling asleep. If she'd wanted to kill herself she had a good reason to do it.
Kurt was dead. Officially, he'd been killed a day ago in the morning. The diagnosis was: a hunting accident that nearly killed her too. Her hair was cut short now, and there was a bandage over her head to mask the gouge from a bullet that nearly took her head off. She looked like a mummy up top with all the bandaging. An ugly one that couldn't manage a smile at all on a tired, and sick-looking face.
She couldn't point a finger and squarely say "this is the fault of love" either, because love had nothing to do with Kurt dying. A bullet did. She couldn't remember anything about it, either. She knew she wouldn't remember this check, or this rainy day, either.
Now she was an empty bag of a person writing a check to her landlord by her phone. She'd cleaned out the machine messages left for her the moment she got in.
– Alyssa, I heard what happened, I'm so sorr–.
– Hi, it's James. I'm not good at this but I wanted to call and see if you were oka–
– Ashcroft it's your landlord. Your rent was due yesterday. I'll give you two days before I start getting movers–
She signed the check.
A. Ashcroft.
"I told you. He sucks."
She had a couch that pulled out into a bed next to hers, hosting one man who actually had the tears for the both of them. He was deflated like a shapeless coat. Long night, longer day. While death was going through its motions, Kevin had kept watch over her like a lighthouse to a far shore (getting further by the day). He'd taken leave to do this. She hadn't asked him to.
He cried about Kurt when he thought she wasn't watching.
Kurt was the first person she'd be burying. She didn't have a frame of reference for what to do. Particularly when there was no body, what could you do? None of them had the money for a stand in casket or anything like that.
Alyssa signed a check, and packed a week's worth of her life into the old suitcase she'd come to Raccoon City with and had covered in travel stickers back then, with dreams that she'd be other places for work someday. Never really happened.
Once the suitcase had been packed, and her shifts had been folded up into little sausages to fit, she closed the lid, zipped it, and watched him. Lump of a guy on her couch with tired, sad eyes, who wanted a cigarette.
"Gotta drop this off first."
They had a trial going down the six flights of stairs back to his car, with her coordination being like a fish on land.
"C'mon. You can pick up some smokes from the machine downstairs."
She sounded empty and without energy to even her own ears. Deflated. Last night she was apparently whimpering in her sleep. She'd gotten up at some point to hide in the bathroom and hold her hands over her head. Those drills of duck-and-cover became an instinct.
Predictably, she couldn't remember doing it at all.
The rain finally came in the night, and continued into the day, periodically halting to let the smell of petrichor waft and kids play in those moments of reprieve. But with it, the headache from hell lingered, leaving Kevin wan and irritable, though he never took it out on anyone.
Sleep the night before was restless. He cried himself to sleep, and laid like a rock until waves of hypervigilant paranoia woke him in small bursts to check on Alyssa, to make sure she was still breathing, to make sure no one else was in his apartment with them.
The story the investigations department were running with was that a hunting accident killed Kurt and almost killed Alyssa. It was handwaved, and ultimately nothing would come of it, just like most of the missing persons cases that passed through.
We don't even have a body.
At some point in the night, when it started to storm, Kevin even dreamed of Kurt.
Kevin awoke to a knock at his door. He picked himself up to go and answer, thinking that it was someone from work. That maybe he overslept again, and someone was stopping by for a wellness check. But when he opened the door, there was Kurt. His smart gray suit was drenched through, his blue button-up a bit undone with his stupid yellow tie pulled loose.
"Is it alright if I check on Alyssa?"
"Come right on in," he'd answered.
He didn't remember that he was dead.
He jolted awake to an empty bed, and Alyssa nowhere in sight. He'd rushed up, and found her, eventually, curled up into a ball on the bathroom floor, whimpering and covering her head. Kevin sat with her, and eventually coaxed her back into the bed.
When dawn broke, he gave up on sleep. Alyssa made him aware she had things to handle, and life didn't stop for anyone. He drove her back to her apartment, coasting through the familiar streets of South Campbell, and escorting her up six flights of stairs to her tiny room.
Kevin laid down on her couch, miserable and sore, the ache in his chest and head akin to a kind of sickness of its own. He folded his arms, leaned back, and closed his eyes while Alyssa got things together to properly stay with him, and wiped her machine of voicemail.
Her landlord was threatening her, everyone else was being sympathetic.
"They're all dicks," he grumbled, "and that's bull. They gotta give you more than three days notice."
He pushed himself upright at Alyssa's insistence, wiping his eyes clear of misty film.
"Ugh. Yeah, I need a cigarette," he mumbled, "Let's drop off that check and get outta here. Lemme carry your stuff for you. You need help down, Alyssa?"
–Go to San Fransisco but don't expect me to be waiting for you when you get back!
A bowl of soup was good for the soul. Should've been. Could've been. A man tried to beg for a little understanding in his grey suit and 60s manicured hair. His gal begged for honesty and got obfuscation. Alyssa wasn't watching the picture, but she didn't need to to know the begging ended with a kiss. There was a wet sensation in her mouth and a wet sensation on her forearms that came and went in bouts. She crumpled on his bed thinking at least the bachelor had enough space for two.
She must've said yes, or did something that meant yes, or she could've done nothing at all but sit like a catatonic lump. That part wasn't clear. What was clear was the light on the wall from his CRT and a trifecta of three pills put on his nightstand with some bitter orange juice. The bowl disappeared when her forearms had felt wet. He'd taken it to clean up and she hadn't even heard the cheap ceramic hit the sink.
Alyssa sat up with effort and seizing winces. The burns on her hands felt like they were digging into her bones. Those same hands had a deadline end of week, function or not, so the pills went down and the bitter juice went down. It tasted like being sick at five without dad raining blows for stupid questions and knocking a small bag of chips out of her hands onto a recently grouted tile floor. Why can't I have some chips?
Why can't I have anything?
At five it was a little simpler to understand, particularly with a fever. Just the way things were. Older, it got harder, because of the senselessness of it. Her hands felt wet, but the head injury was to blame and in ten to fifteen minutes that might not be as much of a problem.
So she lied back down and crumpled.
–Maybe you do need this week away alone. Maybe we both do.
A man and a woman met at a bar on the tiny silver screen. She asked if she trapped him, he never really answered.
–You don't know what it can do to two people, Paula. The woman always gets hurt more than the man. I don't want you to get hurt, darling.
She felt her eyes drooping, exhausted. It was a beautiful day in Raccoon City. The sky was clear. She should be talking to Kurt through a camera lens, pointing at a shining sun, saying it's going to be a nice sixty five degrees all week this week.
Alyssa sculpted a wall around her with her hands over her eyes, turned onto her side to avoid agitating the back of her head and the gouge in the side of her skull. Nothing was said, and the sleep she fell into was shallow.
- More than anything in the world, I don't want you to get hurt.
Frank touched Paula's cheek with the back of his hand, gently, waiting a beat or two before he asked if she wanted music, and rising up to give the barman a quarter for some nickels, and picked some laid back jazz for the almost empty bar.
And Paula relented, telling Frank that he must go to San Francisco, and that she was sure of it now.
Kevin was only paying half attention when the scene shifted to Frank's arrival at San Francisco. He'd focused on getting Alyssa her medicine, making sure she didn't choke, making sure she wasn't having seizures.
The light outside was still shining, well past noon, and still bright. But Kevin had not slept since before ten the night before, and the long night and shocking day had started to wear thin his nerves.
He should have been asleep already. In about three hours, he should have been waking up to meet with Alyssa and Kurt at the bar, exchanging stories about how work went and making vague plans for some kind of road trip somewhere- assuming any of them could get off of work. And then, Kevin would have to leave early, so he could head to work... and somehow still manage to be late.
All of that was gone now.
Grief finally hit him like a swift knee to the chest. One of his best friends was dead, and he'd almost lost Alyssa all in the same day.
He couldn't breathe. His lungs were seizing and the air felt thick, his eyes and nose stung like he'd just taken on water, like he was drowning. He held it back as long as he could, trying to take care of Alyssa. But with her fed, medicated, and asleep, there wasn't much else he could do except tend to his own pain.
So, he wept quietly on the bed, the silver screen and intrigues surrounding an adamant caller were little more than light and noise while the release of pent up emotion tore through him, tensing muscles and splitting his skull.
A minute passed with dialogue and scene changes on the TV. Three guys were exchanging a paper, they found Frank Bigelow somehow. She didn't move at all, listening to the movie's crackling, low audio. I live in a little town- in the desert- on the way to Palm Springs- Alyssa moved like a broken doll, one bent limb at a time bearing the weight of her body.
She took the soup when she was upright, leaning against his headboard for some support and collecting the offered bowl. She'd lost plenty of blood. Some sodium would be good, and might even fix the grave-bound exhaustion that told her she was more tired than hungry.
–I'll be leaving San Fransisco today but I'll be back in about a week.
It was the best canned soup she'd had in her life. Sighing into the first sip was a sign she was in there, somewhere. She ate slowly, and said nothing. She usually occupied every space to the fullest. When Alyssa was in a room, everyone knew she was there. Energy came off her in waves and infected every party she'd been invited to. Every event with her connected to another in a social dance that never really ended.
For someone who lived life hands off the handlebars, the person sitting in the bed might as well have been lifeless. Dreams of grandeur, her own invincible fantasy, and the momentum of a train had been parts of her.
Husked was a good way to put it. Kevin was her only real witness, this guy who didn't need to take her burdens but did it anyway. He faintly smelled of cigarettes. His place needed cleaning- not sloppy, just a no free time kind of guy.
Her bowl was slow to go. She ate much slower, the texture making her skin crawl and her hands feel clammy. Halfway through, she set it aside in defeat. Sweat made it impossible.
Kevin joined her, sitting up against the headboard, and letting one leg dangle off the side of the bed in case he needed to get up again. He cradled his own bowl in his lap with the corner of his blanket to act as a barrier against the heat.
They sat together, eating quietly while the black and white images flickered on the screen, only the soft clanking of metal spoons against ceramic punctuated the dialogue in Frank Bigelow's memory.
- Paula, don't be like that.
- Don't be like what? You just drop a little announcement that you're going away not tomorrow, or next week, or next month, but today. No explanations, nothing. And I'm supposed to swallow the excuse that you need a little vacation?
The secretary, the blonde woman, Paula raised her voice. Spurned by Frank's lack of consideration for her and her feelings.
- I just want to get away from town for a few days, that's all.
- Get away from this town, or get away from me?
It had been a while since he'd sat down and watched this movie. He couldn't remember what it was that Frank was running from: his job, his commitments, his fiancee-?
What Kevin wouldn't give at times to succumb to that cowardly part of him and run away from responsibility.
He never would. And he despised people that did.
Kevin finished his soup faster than Alyssa could, and it turned out that she couldn't finish it at all. When she thanked him and sat her half-eaten bowl aside, he pat her shoulder, and stood up from the bed. Kevin stepped softly around the bed to gather her bowl from the night stand.
"You're welcome. I'll put it up for you, and get you the scrips the hospital gave me. You, uh, want some juice or water with them?"
