Swelling

Verne Cepeda. Elite. 24. Under Nevis.

[jane-reznor]

Noooooooooo. [The contempt in Jane’s voice is obvious, barring on contentious. Her eyes barely opening up at all in the flurry of prods and pokes and strokes through her hair that might have been nice had they not been quick, pared with quick-spoken words in a childlike manner so annoying that she thinks she might be having a fever dream.]

Can’t we do the most important day of the year when the sun is fucking out?

[Which is obviously not the point because it’s black friday which is done long before the sun reaches its peak over the horizon and kisses the sky golden and blue. Done while it’s still dark. Black. Which is probably why it’s called black friday and she tiredly doesn’t want to realize that she’s just now putting that together.

She swats at his attempt at something sweet. Jane, the bitter old man, grumpy over nose kisses.] 

Let me sleep and we’ll do whatever you want after.

[verne-cepeda]

If we buy it later, we'll be too late to buy shit for what it's worth, Jane. We have to elbow our way to the shit. It's how we prove to it we're worthy.

[And it sounds like such bullshit, even coming out of his mouth. But his sister could use a few things, he knows. And hell, so could he. He wants to drag Jane through crowds and stores, just not to be alone. And because she's her, and this day, --this adventure-- is theirs.

Vaguely, he thinks that she has a point that. He thinks it would be just as appealing to stay in bed and not shop. Especially if he can simply burrow beneath her sheets with her.

But he thinks he might get smacked.

And there's shopping to be done.

So he doesn't let her rest. Instead he tugs away the covers, to motivate her to move.]

Rise and shine.

[verne-cepeda]

[It's that time of the year. The time of the year that Verne feels completely justified to break the fuck into Jane's house and settle himself at the end of her bed. Not that he's particularly been stopped from doing so at any other point in the year. It's just that now, with his feet tucked up next to hers, he doesn't feel bad hovering over the sleeping blonde and prodding her awake.

His fingers trace through her hair and poke at her cheeks, shaking and shaking her shoulders until he thinks he see her start to gain consciousness.]

Jane, Jane, Jane, Janey. Wake up, Janey. It's time.

[He only lets up in his stream of poking, shaking, and pleading to kiss the tip of her nose contentedly.]

We can't miss the most important day of the year.

[jane-reznor]

Only if they’re slurred-word drunk and apparently just full of confidence tonight. [Which, let’s face it, is farther from being subtle than she could even bother trying to be right now. When she’s had just enough and he’s had maybe a bit too much, not that she can really tell. Apart from his monosyllabic noises, at first glance.

But then, the way he tensed up the moment he saw her says that he’s sober enough to remember all the implications. Loud party. Dark rooms. Tiny pink pills burning a hole in her pocket that she’d gotten from Ed. A couple extra, when the lights from the party go out and she can open the sun-roof of the car and stare out at the stars, swirling above her head like ocean waves.

She thinks there’s something to be said about doing drunks alone — like the way people talk about drinking alone. But she doesn’t really care. Just steps forward, taking his hand in hers, and placing it into the pocket of her dress. Crowd of people be damned.] 

Don’t you have friends you need to be getting back to?

[verne-cepeda]

[Verne could say yes -- should say yes. Because he does -- he has a girlfriend, and a not-girlfriend, and a not-boyfriend too. There really are places he ought to be.

But he can feel the pills in her pocket, and if he presses his fingers further, her thigh beneath his fingertips. Only the thin fabric parting his skin, and where he traces tiny circles against hers. There are plenty of rooms in this stranger's house, and he's not really sure that either of them would actually be missed if they slipped away for twenty minutes, thirty minutes, an hour.

It could be fun. They could have fun.

And Verne's really not seeing a downside to it. So he slides his fingers over in her pocket; closer to her inner thigh, and grins.]

They won't miss me. Yours will live without you. And besides, you seem to be feeling fairly confident yourself.

[His voice is rough at best, but he thinks his eyes hold the spark of mischievousness he's trying to convey if the statement itself falls through. It won't though. Because she is her, and he is him, and he's fucked her into the backseat of her own car before.

Verne knows that they're both in this, in their own strange ways.]

[jane-reznor]

To make out with blonde girls? [It’s not exactly an inappropriate question, seeing as how she’d done so not just with River, but his actual girlfriend, as well. Even if she doesn’t always one hundred percent know what the other two in his exclusive little club actually amount to for him. Even if they all seem like one big group of togetherness.

All she really knows is that it hadn’t been quite a big deal when she’d found herself lip-locked with any of the other three — until Verne. And that out of all three, Liara was the one that got a title. Liara was the one that he called his own and it was zipped-lips about the two of them — Verne and Jane — even though neither of them had ever really agreed to it. Even though neither had said that they should be quiet about it. But she knows that they should.]

I’m always here for that. [And truthfully, she might have been. Until about three minutes ago.] 

Unless I get distracted. Too many drinks. Mystery pills. Unexpected visitors. That sort of thing.

[verne-cepeda]

Unexpected visitors distract you from your plans? [He asks likes he isn't guilty of exactly the same thing. Like he doesn't know that he is that unexpected visitor, and vice versa. And like he is incredibly smug, because wow, he is.

Mystery pills catch his attention too - like a beacon in the midst of her words, speaking to his true interests. What if she was given something different than he was? What if she has more of what he was given? Verne wants to empty her pockets, looking for the next high. But he doesn't know how to ask for it.

So instead he asks something a lot bigger. Something that comes out so very wrong from how he meant it, though truth be told, he'd have asked it eventually anyways.]

Want to find more of those mystery pills and a room?

[He means for quiet. For uninterrupted banter, and a sense of privacy more than the open room. But the innuendo of it crawls beneath his skin in a way he can't really ignore, and wouldn't deny despite his actual intentions.]

[jane-reznor]

Friend of a friend? Ed’s cousin, maybe? [She truly can’t remember at this point, despite the fact that she’s almost positive that someone around here told her upon entering. Had to have at some point, seeing as how the party bus alternative for transportation was never really her style, and cabs weren’t much of an option with a situation like hers.

It’s not like everyone here doesn’t fucking know that she lives in her car. It’s just easier to not make a thing about it. To not have to have the cab or bus or Designated Dan drop you off in some random spot without four walls and a bed in sight. Easier to drive up with your bed in tow and leave whenever you feel you’ve had enough to wander into some dark lot and sleep of tomorrow’s regrets.

That, or get so drunk that they have to drive you “home” anyway, and end up wandering up to Verne’s door like the inappropriate idiot she is — something she’d rather avoid if she could help it.

Which she can, since he’s here. Standing in front of her with words like stumbling nothing from lips not wasted, but well on their way. She’s seen him like this before.] 

Don’t tell me. You’re just here to drink other people’s beer and make out with blonde girls, right? I mean, you’ve got your pick of the lot. [Pretty tall ones with lips like cherries that could literally be in any room of the house. Could be right behind her, for all she knows.]

[verne-cepeda]

Not quite. [He hums, with surprising ease given his last few lines. An easy that flows too quickly into uneasy, divided words.] Only two.

[And he thinks the grin he forces must look as fake as it feels. Because he knows that when he says two, the blondes in question should be Liara and River. The ones in their comfortable little group. But fuck, he'd be lying if he said he was considering River over Jane at the moment.

He'll hold it to, if she asks though.

He'll say he didn't know she was going to be there -- because he didn't -- and so the only blondes he could actually be there for are his friends. He won't say that his plans can change. That they have.

Or that they don't really even matter, because wow, his only actual plan was to get fucked up and have a good time.

Which Jane is half ruining.]

And you're not here for that?

[jane-reznor]

[Jane has already has more than a couple by the time Ed walks by handing out shots to the group. Not enough that it would send her floating off into the abyss, mind you. But just so much that the tiny tube filled with something blue doesn’t even phase her capable of doing any more damage than Mr. Cuervo already has.

And it lines her throat like a thick concoction that could only have been created by a drunk college student who happened to supply most of the refreshments for the night. It’s easier, letting it go down and looking around at the room filled mostly with faces she doesn’t have to confront on Monday morning. Friends of friends. Familiarity lingers around corners, sure. But it’s red splatters on a white canvas and so easy to avoid if she wants to.

Unless it’s camouflaged in long jackets — unkempt facial hair and hazy eyes that say they’ve probably had more than she has and it’s only eleven o’clock. The entire bucket spilled out and covering everything. Completely unavoidable.

Not that she wants to. Or maybe she does, or maybe she knows in her gut that where there’s a Verne, there’s a gaggle of high boys and girls, all of whom have tasted her teeth on foggier nights than this one.

It’s not that she doesn’t like them. It’s that she does. And wandering away from her pack to the wall he’s glued himself to seems inevitable.] 

Fancy meeting you here.

[verne-cepeda]

[Verne doesn't think it's fancy. He thinks is probably the exact opposite of fancy; with his throat going bone dry the minute she's speaking. And it's not like she has him tongue tied. Verne isn't the type to trip up around other people. Even the ones he's wildly attracted to.

But somewhere between his first drink and his second, he had stopped trying to articulate. By his fifth, while not so gone he couldn't speak, any real effort left had been abandoned.

Now his mind was awash with syllables only half formed, and the wit he usually reserves for the familiar blonde comes out mangled. Maye even too dry.]

Totally. You um, you a friend of the host?

[Verne mostly just counts on it getting easier. Once he's past the initial rush of desire and surprise -- once he remembers with some clarity that Jane is not his girlfriend, Liara is -- he'll pick back up the pieces of himself he'd dropped with his sobriety.]

Because I'm going to be honest, I have no idea whose house this is.

[verne-cepeda]

[His head is pounding, for lack of a better way of putting that. That isn't the feeling entirely. What it actually seems like is something only half-whole and otherworldly. A lot like River might feel if she were a variation of a headache. Or maybe it's a normal headache, and whatever that guy handed him an hour ago is really kicking in.

Honestly, Verne isn't sure.

But he makes his way through the house; hand pressed firm to the wall so as not to lose his way. Tapestries and frames block his fingers, interrupting his path, and he must look like a lost child. But the residence isn't one of theirs, for once. The home of a friend of a friend of a friend of Nigel's.

And though he knows he won't get so lost amongst the hallways that he'd need to leave a trail, it's grounding in a quiet way just to have the contact at all.

Grounding until he rounds a corner and sees Jane of all people, in the room he didn't know he was headed towards.

In a brief moment, he wants to walk away. In another, he wants to take her hand and lead her back along the wall to where he knows there's a staircase  -- and spare rooms beyond. He wants to leave the party, he wants to know clearly what it would sound like to have her gasping against his lips in an actual bedroom.

What he settles on, is making a dying noise in the back of his throat, and waving. It's not a particularly warm gesture. Not one that could be seen as suspicious by Liara, who he reminds himself, could be literally anywhere in the house.]

[jane-reznor]

No. [She shakes her head to accompany the lie. It’s not like she couldn’t keep her eyes open for another minute if she tried. But more that the bed is warm, soft, comfortable. And he’s warm, maybe not the softest thing she’s had wrapped around her in her day, but definitely something she’s grown used to having there when the sun disappears from the sky.

And it’s familiar enough that she leans into it, even though her head is still so unbelievably happy resting on the pillow. It’s easier here than it was in the bunker. All those cots, and he ended up in hers. And with Molly’s green eyes leering over towards them nearly every 20 minutes, it was harder to pretend that resting her head on his chest hadn’t become her favorite way to fall asleep.] I mean, well, yeah.

[She misses showers. Knows the only thing that would make a place like this better would be that steamed, clean feeling of slipping between the sheets after one. And maybe it’s that or maybe it’s the way she can almost image his lips getting lost on the words ‘Trouble now’ against hers.

So yeah, she is tired. But they’re the only people in the world as far as she’s concerned. She can stay up. What does she have, like a job interview in the morning?] What are you gonna do, give me a reason to stay up? I do love a good bedtime story.

[verne-cepeda]

Do I really have to say it?  [His voice is low, with only amusement biting at the tired edges of the statement. Like this is a conversation they've had too many times before -- a leap one no longer has to look for. Like the words have always gone unsaid, but not without attempts at baiting. Verne doesn't know that he would mind saying it.

He just doesn't want to run in circles while she tries not to.

Absently, he pulls Jane closer. It's too easy to nuzzle into her space; tucking his head down against her hair. And though it was never a challenge to want to -- not even before they became each other's only company -- it almost feels right, now. As if no matter how violently the world shakes and shivers, he'll have his home there.

And all the same, not like that at all.

Because that takes a level of commitment he doesn't think either of them are quite willing to give. True devotion is earned. He's only soft on her yet. It's not that he can't see himself sticking with her in the long run. It's just that he isn't sure of things yet.

The lack of that weight carrying neither positive nor negative connotations, in how he means it.

Verne just wants to kiss her. And maybe hold her. Mostly he wants the withdrawals to stay only ghosts, and a good night's sleep. Only two of those things are possible.]

You're ridiculous. I hope you know that.

[jane-reznor]

[She’d told him not to break the sliding door open. Because, like, it’s the actual real life apocalypse and when people abandon their homes for good, it’s not like they go around checking that all the windows are locked of anything.

But they’d been on their feet for a while — longer than she’d planned on for the day. The sun never seems to set when she thinks its supposed to these days. Like somehow slowly but surely the earth is spinning slower and the sun is burning colder out there 92,960,000 miles away. Bottoming out with sadness because her favorite child is dying, even though she knows she’s not supposed to pick favorites. But the little blue-green one was always the smartest and made the funniest little things to show her. Lights up the brightest and feels the most alive.

Or, felt, at least. Jane thinks if she were the sun, she’d probably be bummed that all the lights went out on Earth too. She’s bummed enough about it just being one of the tiny inhabitants that could really, really go for some sushi and Netflix right now. 

Still, she has a less than rotting house. An actual bed. Verne. 

Pre D-Day Jane would be absolutely vomiting at how vaguely positive those things feel right now. She knows that. Acknowledges it, breathes it in, and kicks off her shoes and curls herself onto the empty spot next to him.

It doesn’t even smell like death in here, and god that is so welcome. Her eyes are closed before she can even look up at him and roll them.] 

Yeah, trouble. Let’s start a punk band and I’ll pierce your ear in the bathroom. Parent Trap style. You down?

[verne-cepeda]

[He'd laugh -- does even, just not as loud as he might have -- if he weren't serious to begin with. Not that piercing his ear and joining a punk band sounds like a necessarily bad plan. It just isn't the one he's working on right now. And she makes it so easy, with all of her bite and pointless hardness, to feel affectionate of her.

Easier still to shift, until he's got his arms wrapped around her waist.

It's not a new gesture for them. He's spent weeks now learning how far he can push it. How much contact is comfortable, and how much is honestly too much for the both of them. But even on nights when they close their eyes with a half a foot in between them, they wake up curled closer than before.

Verne doesn't really see anything wrong with initiating that closeness ahead of time.]

Punk band and earrings later. Trouble now. [But there's no actual force behind the words. It lingers as a suggestion; an open door. Not one, at that, that she ever has to step foot through. Aimless flirting.

As an afterthought, he asks:] Are you tired? [He thinks the answer is obvious enough for both of them. But he more means on a scale of 'I could talk for a while' to 'sing me to sleep, now.']

[verne-cepeda]

[The house is a small one, compared to some of the places they've stayed. It doesn't quite matter, though. Because it's still got a stock of canned goods, and a first aid kit shoved away in the bathroom cabinet -- like whoever had left, had only left with the guarantee of a better offer. It was nice, in short. Even if he no longer knew where they were, or how long it would take to reach Paris from here.

Maybe that doesn't quite matter, though. It isn't as if the two of them don't have all the time in the world. Civilization has more or less ended. It isn't like they're on spring break. -- Though, pointedly, Verne had never even had a spring vacation to go on. --

They'd discovered shortly after arrival that the couch pulled out into a bed. And while often times that was preferable to sleeping between a dead stranger's personal sheets, the couch here was positioned beside a sliding glass door. One he'd already busted open just to get through. One someone else could just as easily use. And Verne isn't a fan of purposefully sleeping in vulnerable places.

Though he'd been spared plenty through stature, he'd occasionally seen people taken out for less than sleeping in the wrong spot. Sometimes, just for fun. So he insists they take the upstairs room.

And Verne is smirking when he settles back onto the bed.]

Softest sheets I've felt in a while. We could get up to some trouble here, Janey.

[jane-reznor]

[It’s exhausting to pretend she isn’t amused by all of it. That him standing in the middle of this private place that feels more like a home than her own apartment is anything but surprising to her. She’d wondered for a few days now how long it would take for him to show up here. At her job. Or at Molly’s of all places, though that would take a hell of a lot more explaining. 

Here people get visitors all the time. Significant others come to pick her labmates up for lunch. Their kids come to visit and see the cool things. Proud parents in town for the weekend get a glimpse at the world their children are exploring and just how successful they’ve gotten at it. She’d brought Amatra here once, but they’d been high and Martin had noticed how weird they were acting.

There’s no one else here today. Mostly because Jane had been so busy helping plan Molly’s wedding these past couple of weeks that she’d fallen behind on her work — had to come in on the days when everyone else was off. Somehow she feels like he must know that or else he would have just waited for another time to come stalk in in the lab. But then, that feels a little crazy even for Verne’s standards.

She rolls her chair back from the desk, not standing up to meet him, but spinning it so that they’re facing one another. And it’s weird, seeing him here in this setting. This place of her own.] You should go for it. Give him your number. Ask him out somewhere nice. I mean, I know that must be why you’re in the building. Can’t think of any other reason you’d be here, right?

[verne-cepeda]

[Verne lets himself grin in spite of her words; a lopsided gesture if ever there was one. He knows that he could say all sorts of things about why he is or isn't here, but he doesn't. He only lets the suggestion that things might be otherwise hang in the air between them. She will know it, feel it as firmly as he does if she is looking for it.

And instead of speaking, he merely shrugs. Sends her a look that speaks volumes as to how ridiculous he knows -- with a strange sort of lucidity -- that this all is.

But he'll play along as long as he has to -- not akin to the projecting his job requires. Merely patience misplaced; something he ought not to want to give her. But he does, because he likes her. Even if he shouldn't be fond of a heathen.

Her head, her skin, is soaked up in a universal lie. One that ought to twist her into something unreachable. Something he should pull away from, given how unlikely it was that she would ever be converted. But he won't. And wrong or not, he'll draw himself to her like a moth to a flame (if ever he would let her hold that kind of power. If ever it was something for him to choose).

Verne is rather content in knowing she is wrong, and ignorant. Rather happy, just to speak to her anyways; even if they both find ways to dig beneath each other's skin.

Jane is nothing if not entertaining. He wouldn't be here if she wasn't. Wouldn't be picking at the seams of her composure.]

I can think of a few, probably. If I try real hard.

[tyrellsrosarium-blog-deactivate]

[jane-reznor]

[His voice literally scares the living shit out of her. Like somehow the worst thing that Jane could ever imagine happening ever would be Verne somehow figuring out where she goes to do her research and then fucking showing up there. And it makes sense that he would; she never put it past him, following her all the way to somewhere professional and serious. A place where she’s supposed to be focused and calm. 

The man had broken into her house at six in the morning, made bacon in his underwear, and made out with her before she got more than three sentences out of her mouth. So hearing his voice ringing through her ears while her eyes trace the patterns along the screen isn’t unepected. It’s just surprising.

And maybe a little concerning because the last time she’d had anyone in the lab with her, she’d been high as balls and showing unproven stats to the random girl with the big eyes and very little concept for stranger danger.

Though, really, who is Jane to be talking about that topic. Maybe it makes more sense now that Verne hangs around because they’ve spent so much time together. But he’s not her friend. And if the way he pops up everywhere says anything, it’s that he’s probably more messed up than she likes to let on.

Still, her eyes leave the screen long enough to roll at him.] Yeah, balding middle eastern grandfathers are totally my type too.

I bet he doesn’t even follow girls to their place of employment. Total dreamboat, that Mr. Duncan.

[verne-cepeda]

[Verne rolls his eyes; tempted to snort. Like he could laugh off the situation he himself caused, but he won't. Won't because, he caused it. Won't because it's her. Won't because the only things he actually minds about the sound of 'Duncan' are the balding and grandfather parts. Middle-aged, he could do. He's not exactly a teenager himself.

Grandfather is a step too far. So instead Verne shifts his weight; propping against the counter beside her, and crossing his arms loosely. Vaguely he remembers telling Amatra about body language as a kid.

How someone had sat him down to tell him about the world before sending him on his first recruit. He'd been good at it then. Children always had a much easier time convincing adults to believe in their Gods.

'Hands out and open,' the voice tells him. It's an off shade of familiar that Verne is no longer able to place, and in a moment of clarity, he wonders where the person behind it went. He hasn't heard he voice in years. 'If you fold your arms, you're closing yourself off from the person you are talking to. Fold them behind your back, if you must. It creates a picture of openess.'

And yet, Verne isn't trying to block himself off from Jane here. He's only creating distance between right and wrong. He stands on ground raised three inches higher. It's a different view from above.

Which isn't even a short joke.]

It's his dedication to the job, you know. Really gets me going.

Of course, don't let him know you don't dig it. I think you might really break his heart.

[ledgerndary]

Visit Original Link

[verne-cepeda]

Oh Lord, Oh Lord, I’m begging you please Don’t take that sinner from me

[verne-cepeda]

[Verne isn't, technically speaking, supposed to be there. Verne isn't, again, technically speaking, supposed to be anywhere. Or maybe he's everywhere. He doesn't quite know. It's a funny sort of feeling that floods the storm shelters in his mind; drenches everything in warm, and wet, and-- not real.

Because Verne has been a lot of places that he's not meant to be. And the lab he's seen Jane head to, is only one of many, on an overall list.

So he doesn't really think twice about how he's not doing his own job. Hasn't been for weeks now. Or how there's a holiday two days away, and he's meant to have brought people in for it. He's not a hunter, at least. There's a layer of waxy film set universally between him and them. And if they are both meant to lure people to their deaths, then at least, Verne acts of the kinder base.

It is devotion that has him trailing the blood paths hunters leave in the morning dew. It's devotion that keeps him pacing the same dying city day in day out; breathing in the stale air, and swallowing it down. To him, it feels like cobwebs growing in his lungs.

Safety is the flame lit in his vanes at the flash of familiar blonde. Not so heavy as his brunette God Head. Like obligation -- devotion -- might only be temporary, if only he could chase desire far enough off the path.

It's why he's here -- tripping and stumbling over himself internally, just to watch Jane work. Because she's flattened grass off a beaten path. A suggestion of something else -- new --, that he won't take. Doesn't want to take. But wants to see all the same.

Even when she's made of the same dirt and broken glass that he is. Though he's aware she would hate the suggestion.]

The receptionist is cute. [Despite that he hasn't seen one. It's small talk. It doesn't need to be true. Only much of what he says to her somehow is.]

[butterflycaps]

[zuzzolek-deactivated20150812]