⚈: jessica’s reaction to finding drugs in trish’s handbag:
@trishwclkcr
She’s looking for gum. Trish has always been more prepared than she is, the only thing in Jessica’s bag is a goddamn half-filled Sudoko book, her camera, and her flask. And it’s not like Trish will mind, they’ve fallen right back into old habits, sharing everything from food to clothes to secrets.
She’s only half paying attention, most of her focused on Trish through the studio window. She likes to distract her during her radio show, try and slip her up, even if it never actually works. Trish’s purse is packed full of shit, the rattle of pills doesn’t immediately worry her.
Until she actually grabs the bottle, realizes it’s not just over-the-counter Advil, or Midol. It’s a prescription bottle.
She pulls it out, heart racing. There’s no label, it’s been torn off. And her stomach falls.
No. No, no, no.
Not again.
Not caring that Trish still has ten minutes left in her show, not caring that she’s in the middle of some goddamn phone interview with some goddamn doctor in Africa or some goddamn shit, not caring that Trish’s assistant, some mousy little girl that’s good with computers but bad at speaking up for herself is trying to stop her, Jessica wrenches the soundproof door open hard enough to knock it off its hinges and storms inside.
Trish gapes at her, opens her mouth to say something, but before she can, Jessica’s pressing the end call button. She holds up the bottle, and Trish’s face goes white.
“Sorry about that, folks,” she says, her voice not shaking in the least. She didn’t win that People’s Choice Award for nothing, after all. “Technical difficulties. We’ll pick up with Dr. Shore next time on Trish Talk. Log onto our website to leave comm–”
Jessica reaches out, rips the microphone up. A flurry of wires ends the show a lot goddamn faster than Trish’s sign off.
Trish breathes out once, her eye twitching only a little bit. “I can explain.”
“Explain what exactly?” Jessica shouts, tossing the ruined microphone against the wall. Behind her, the assistant lets out a little squeak. “Oh, go get a goddamn coffee or something,” she snaps over her shoulder. Then she rounds on Trish again.
“It’s okay, Korissa,” Trish says softly. “Jess and I are going to talk.”
“Damn right we are,” Jessica says heatedly. She hears scurried footsteps behind her, Trish watches the assistant leave.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she says, her eyes meeting Jessica’s. But only for a moment. “She’s a good per–”
“I don’t care if she’s goddamn Mother Theresa,” Jessica snaps. She slams the pill bottle onto the table in front of Trish. “What the hell is this, Trish?”
Trish won’t look at her, won’t look at the bottle, she just stares at her ruined microphone, lying in a heap on the floor. “Jess…” she says weakly.
“You talk to me,” Jessica demands, just like Trish did over a year ago. When Jessica showed up on her balcony, when she dragged Trish back into her shitty goddamn life even though she knew it was a bad idea. “You talk to me and you tell me how the hell you got this.”
Trish sighs. “I can play the Patsy card for more than morgue attendants,” she says, closing her eyes.
Jessica wants to reach out and shake her, wants to crush the bottle and every pill inside into dust, wants to hit something.
Main Street. Birch Street. Goddamn piece of shit Higgins Drive.
The mantra does little to soothe the fury in her chest. The fury that only barely masks the worry. She remembers when Trish hit rock bottom, when she turned into a stick-thin husk, with zombie eyes and needle marks up and down her skinny arms, when her purse was filled with nothing but pill bottles with the labels torn off, syringes, tiny little packets.
“Did I do something?” she asks, unclenching her jaw. “Is it –”
“Jesus, Jessica, not everything is about you!” Trish snaps. Jessica takes a step back, like Trish has pushed her, but they haven’t had a fight like that since they were sixteen. “Though you’re one to talk,” she hisses darkly.
Jessica doesn’t need to ask what she means. Her full flask hangs like a thousand-pound weight in her messenger bag. She closes her hand over the strap, just to have something to hold onto, something to keep her hands from reaching for that goddamn flask.
“I’m not the one with a life to throw away,” she says finally, when the silence sitting between them has become too suffocating, too thick, too real. It’s like there’s not enough air in the studio, in the entire world.
Trish scoffs, stands up and tries to push past her. But Jessica grabs her arm, pulls her back.
“Trish,” she says, her fury finally giving way. There’s nothing left but concern. But worry. But love. “Please,” she whispers, and the scowl on Trish’s face softens. Her eyes meet Jessica’s for a moment, and she seizes on it. “I can’t lose you, Trish. Not to being a hero, not to this. Not again.”
Trish’s jaw is set. Jessica knows that look. Knows that it means tears are only moments away.
“I didn’t even take them,” Trish whispers back, her voice cracking. Jessica’s heart cracks, too. “But after… after everything, I just – I couldn’t –” Trish’s blue eyes well up, and Jessica can’t stand the sight, can’t handle it.
She pulls Trish into a tight hug, tighter than she means to, actually feels Trish’s bones protest. But Trish wraps her arms around her too, shoulder’s shaking, her head buried in Jessica’s new jacket.
“I’m sorry,” Trish chokes out, and Jessica, who isn’t good at this, at comfort or support or any of that shit an addict needs, just holds her tighter.
They stay like that for a few minutes. Trish crying softly, mumbling so low and so emotionally that Jessica can’t understand a word, and Jessica just holding her. Holding her like she’s a life raft, instead of the one who’s drowning.
Finally, she pulls away, tilts Trish’s chin up, and holds her face with one hand. “We’ll go back to your place, and we’ll talk,” she says, her own voice thick. “You can tell me what happened. I’ll listen,” she promises, the ferocity back. But tempered this time, by the burning in her own eyes, the tears threatening to spill out. She fights them back, swipes at her face with her free hand. “Just start at the beginning, okay? We’ll figure this out.”
Trish nods, and steps back. She wipes under her eyes, tries to fix the smudged make-up there. Then she turns and starts to walk out of the studio, and Jessica follows.
“I love you, Trish,” she says, pausing in the doorway as Trish collects her purse. “You know that, right?” Even though she never says it. She thought she didn’t have to.
But maybe she was wrong. Trish nods blankly, and they head for the elevator.
☔: jessica’s reaction to opening their front door and seeing lori drenched in rain:
The knock is so small she can barely hear it over the goddamn thunderstorm outside. It’s a damn good thing she never sleeps.
She walks towards her door slowly, reminding herself that the days of Kilgrave sending her clients are long over. Still, she pauses when she reaches the warped wood, listening through the cardboard she has instead of a window. He’s dead. You killed him, Jones, get a goddamn grip,
Breathing heavy, she opens the door – and her stomach drops.
“Chatty girl,” she says, running her eyes up and down Lori. She’s drenched, and not the kind that’d come from walking from a cab to her building. The kind of soaked that takes hours to seep into your skin, her hair hanging in dripping strings around her face. But it’s nothing compared to the look in her eye.
Lost. She’d known it the first time they’d met, when Lori started rambling about meds and needing them, but not wanting them. Had known it when she passed the girl on the street, saw her sitting alone, as if she had nowhere to go. And she knew it now. Only somebody lost would show up on her doorstep.
Lori held her gaze for a moment, then her eyes fell to the floor. “Sorry, I can go –”
“Christ, get in here,” Jessica said, pulling her inside. She jammed the door into place, steered Lori to her couch. “Sit,” she said, like someone would say to a dog. Like Kilgrave would say to a person. She brushed the thought away, snatched the bottle off her desk while she headed for the bathroom.
She returned with a ratty towel, tossed it to the dark-haired girl who had listened to her, and was sitting shivering on her couch. “I got your couch w-wet,” she stammered, teeth chattering.
Jessica shook her head. “Trust me, it’s seen worse,” she said. Thunder clapped outside, sent a sliver of panic through both of them, though Lori flinched more than Jessica.
She hesitated, then moved to sit beside the girl, elbows resting on her knees. “You want a drink or something? You seem pretty goddamn riled up,” she said. Lori shook her head, just absentmindedly patted her hair down.
“You gonna talk about it?” Jessica asked. She didn’t say want.
“My dad --” Lori started, then bit her lip. “He just -- we had a fight about -- I don’t know. Everything. Me, and this Act thing, and just -- just everything.” Her eyes flicked to Jessica’s, so dark and swimming with unshed tears that could easily be mistaken for rain drops. There was an unspoken question there, lurking, a tremble in her lips just barely holding the words in.
“You can stay here,” Jessica said. “Take the bed, this futon sucks,” she said, getting up to make sure there were actual blankets on her bed. She hovered in the door frame, glancing down the hall, then looked back at the girl. “And don’t bother fighting me on this. I’m goddamn stubborn, in case you haven’t realized.”
Lori’s mouth opened, then shut again. She nodded once.
“Come on, shower’s this way,” Jessica said, motioning for her to follow.
Lori padded after her, towards the bathroom. Jessica wrenched the hot water on, let it run a minute because her shower was ten kinds of shit. She turned to leave, then paused, her hand on the one door in her apartment that actually managed to stay on its hinges.
“I’m not gonna say don’t let it get to you,” she said, to the floor instead of meeting Lori’s eyes. “Because it will. Shit like this, it finds a way to get under your skin, bury in deep. The best -- the only thing you can do is try to keep it from being the only voice in your head,” she said, her voice low. She finally glanced back up. “Remember your voice, okay? What you think, and what you feel. And hold onto that.”
She tapped the door frame twice with her hand, then headed back to the futon. She stretched out across it, stared up at her ceiling, and tried to pretend she couldn’t hear the soft cries over the sound of running water.
