Locked in Time (Peregrine x Shizuochan)

It was a long, stumbling walk to the subway station, until JP got her firmly planted on the seat of a subway train, and they parted ways with a vague, confused mumbling of a farewell a couple stops later. Des rested her forehead against one of the metal poles. The cold metal combined with the vibration of the train seemed to clear her head, allowing her to take a couple of deep breaths and shed some of the strain that filled her body. That was, at least, until an abrupt lurch in the train jolted her, causing her head to smack against the pole.

Des leaned back immediately, swearing quietly before cradling her head in her hands. Stupid. She just wanted to get home.

And in the end she made it, although that was after nearly missing her stop and having to bolt her way out the train doors as they were closing. The night air was cool and fresh after the depths of the underground, but Des was in no mood to appreciate it as she stumbled her way home, house key held tightly between her thumb and forefinger like a knife, should anyone be stupid enough to sneak up on her. She fumbled through the process of unlocking her door, before crawling up the stairs on hands and knees.

It took supreme effort for Des to undress herself once she'd firmly closed the door to her room. Only the faint smell of vomit that still lingered on the fabric kept her from marking the entire effort as a waste of time. She flung them uncertainly in the direction of her laundry basket, before falling over on the bed, grabbing a pillow and snuggling up to it.

Des had been certain she'd fall asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, but somehow all of the weariness seemed to flee from her body now that she was relaxed. Instead, she found herself tossing and turning as thoughts she couldn't quite track down looped endlessly through her head. It was like she was trapped again, except instead of being unable to move her body, this time she couldn't move her mind.

In the end she got back up, drank a glass of cold water, paced around the room, lay back down, and was finally able to fall into a fitful slumber that would last well past daybreak.
 
There was the certain sense that, in an otherwise routine-enough post-drunk subway ride, anything could happen. Some cosmic order or celestial bureaucracy, or -perhaps- God, had set a precedent, and JP's mind was thusly expanded, forever more. The thought was as terrifying as it was subtly exhilarating, and Jean-Paul had done his utmost to prevent any particular betrayal of the latter perception from showing upon his face. It had occurred to him, sometime during the laborious walk to the subway, that Des had gotten it - whatever it happened to be - considerably worse than he had. She had been there 'longer', and according to her, not simply in the measure of seconds, minutes and moments the layman may have perceived. Jean-Paul wasn't precisely sure what he had perceived, save for the long strands of Des' hair that he had felt with his own two hands, grown out in the briefest span of not-just-minutes. Immutable evidence of Des' words, that could have been otherwise construed as the cryptic mutterings of the delirious.

He was the first of them off the subway, and had given his best effort at a reassuring farewell, though it had descended from vaguely comforting to un-sure jumble in the span of a half-syllable. Past the unfolding doors of the carriage, and the steps of the station was another trek, this time to be embarked on his lonesome. Considering the prospect of successfully maneuvering his bicycle in his current state to be tenuous at best, he forewent it, thereby opting into at least a half-hour of walking (and, more crucially, sweating). Commercial zones deadened by nightfall transitioned into the diminutive institutes of twenty-four hour gas stations and convenience stores, before giving way to middling apartment complexes, aged and of complexion 'building-beige'. Suburban youth awake past curfew heralded his arrival with a poorly-affected Creole patois, passing by him on their longboards as he neared the complex that he - and many other forgotten big-city grinders - called home.

The maw of the building was rusted steel and smudged glass, and gave willingly with but the hint of a subdued click, the security system having been long-since neglected. At some point, the landlord had decided he had brought on enough hooligans and natural drunks as tenants that he may as well not have bothered concerning himself with the 'Mongols' and 'Visigoths' that roamed the night. The carpeting was less of a pattern then it was an assault, a frayed gradient of browns, greys, lesser greys, and coffee stains with no discernible rationale in its arrangement. He dodged the elevator and opted for the enveloping grey of the stairs.

His father had carved out a space in a complex just like this when Jean-Paul was young, only then he had found the questionable carpeting an endless puzzle to track along, and the (functional) security system to be something almost aspirational; permitting entrance into one's domicile with an obscene buzzer-noise was practically kingly. Now? The carpet induced migraines, the two-bedrooms had grown exorbitantly pricier, and there was no fucking buzzer.

Jean-Paul's apartment was 407, which was just about the time on the clock when he stumbled into the abode. The door hadn’t been locked, which was surprisingly careless from the (ex)wife of a detective, but remarkably thought-out from the (ex)wife of a drunkard. The nauseating carpeting of the complex transitioned sharply into mahogany, a section of it illuminated by the residual light pouring from The Bedroom. Maria was awake.

He approached the Second Bedroom, which - when Maria and him were still in marital bliss - had been designated as the guest room, and also the place to hold ‘the stuff’. Which indicated, perhaps, that Jean-Paul was either a guest.

Or just stuff.

“Jeezus; I can smell your drunk ass from here!” she called out, voice like a dark roast of coffee.

“... That’s impossible.”

Just kidding.

Silence reigned, save for what seemed like the sound of fingers tapping against a touchscreen plastered by the idyllic imagery of some clicker-game, as Jean-Paul made his way to the Second Bedroom sliding his hand against the plaster wall.

“I want to talk to you when you wake up tomorrow.”

Jean-Paul grunted in acknowledgment as he made his way to the bed - or, rather, The-Not-Queen-Sized. Heavy hands took out his own phone and searched for his partner’s number, before making out a message with Jean-Paul’s brand of new-age eloquence: “how u feelin’”. There was no guarantee when he’d wake up tomorrow, and so he’d decided, before falling into his meager cot, that he’d pre-write the message. Slumbering fingers were no good for texting, but he trusted in his ability to hit the ‘Send’ button sometime during his sleepy throes.

And so he slept.
 
  • Bucket of Rainbows
Reactions: Peregrine
Des was surprised to see the sunlight that streamed through the gap in her curtains when she woke again. She didn't bother to check the time on her clock, vaguely remembering that it was still the weekend. When she tried to sit up, a flash of pain arced through her head. She groaned, trying to remember exactly how much she and JP had drunk last night, before she suddenly felt somethign tickling her forearm, and glanced down to see the long locks of hair in the corners of her vision.

Suddenly unconcerned about her headache, Des forced herself to her feet, stumbling towards the bathroom with her eyes half closed. She came to a bumping halt against the edge of the counter, and fished her hair shaver out from under the sink. Desperate to remove these obvious traces of her encounter with the unreal, Des didn't try to shave her hair as nicely as she would have usually done, creating a smooth gradient from her ears to the longer locks of curly hair on top of her head. Instead, she went right to the scalp, pulling the shaver backwards across the dome of her head. Lock after lock of black hair over a foot long dropped to the tiled floor, creating a tangled mass of black strands. In less than ten minutes, Des stared back at her own face in the mirror, left with about a half a centimeter buzzcut. She frowned again, before rubbing behind her ear. The short, prickly sensation of her hair against her fingertips, however, provided her with some comfort.

She didn't do anything else, other than swallow an aspirin for her pounding head, until she'd swept up the hair on the floor and taken it outside, dumped into the communal dumpster for her apartment lot. Only then was she able to relax, this most blatant reminder finally both out of sight and out of mind.

Only once she'd returned to her bedroom did she notice JP's text. She scooped up her phone, heading back into the bathroom to snap a quick selfie in the mirror. The picture accompanied her text.

Doing alright. Des replied, always a stickler for mostly correct punctuation in texts. Killer headache, but fine otherwise. I shaved my head.

Des sent the text, before considering for a moment, and adding a followup. I bet Alvaro will lose his shit.

It almost made it sound... normal. Like she'd woken up this morning and decided, in some burst of spite against her ex, to shave off the last of her hair. The two to three inch curls that had rested on top of her head, up until last night, had been their compromise. Just long enough for him to twine his fingers in, while still short enough to stay out of Des' way. He would have preferred it longer, she would have preferred it shorter. Now, he got no say in the matter, and Des had hacked it all off.

But she couldn't fool herself with that reasoning, and she wouldn't be able to fool JP, either. Neither of them were going to forget last night. For right now, though, all she wanted to do was put it out of her mind. She picked up her phone one last time

I meet Alvaro at 12:30. We'll talk after.

Hopefully he'd get the hint.
 
  • Bucket of Rainbows
Reactions: Aero Blue
In the end, Jean-Paul had managed to send off his pre-written text message with nary a hitch. His thumb had at first slipped away from the ‘Send’ button, threatening to mash all along the touch-keyboard and turning his concerned message into some strange cipher, but the crisis had been, thankfully, averted. Hours later, at around eleven, Jean-Paul had awoken, vaguely recalling that his phone had been vibrating across his temple some time ago. Thus did the very first image of the new day, obscured by crusty eyes, emerge, and it was Des, who was possessed of considerably less hair than she had a night ago.

Thoughtlessly, Jean-Paul’s first act of the day was to rapidfire his own text in response, having not even bothered processing the words of his partner: jesuschrist wtf did u do

Almost immediately after the green bar flicked across the top of the screen, and the message was sent, did JP spring upwards in a lonely panic, having realized his sleepy folly. That sort of response, almost a recoil, would probably be received very poorly by the average person. And so he had, almost as rapidly, set about rectifying it, taking care to exact grammatical correctness to demonstrate that he was truly serious, and thus genuinely apologetic.

Sorry, partner. Didn’t mean that. New look is dynamic… Almost aerodynamic.

But maybe not entirely the former.

He made his way out of the Second Bedroom, and was surprised to note that he felt strangely light on his feet. The aching soreness of his muscles, and familiar hangover aside, he felt pleased. Excited, even, to be in the apartment with the dull mahogany and no buzzer, and even more excited to brew up a subpar cup of coffee and burn an egg over the scratched frying pan and inconsistent heat. Almost in-sync with the thought of eggs was the violent sizzle of oil; Maria had gotten to breakfast first, ostensibly.

Jean-Paul watched her from the edge of their tucked-away kitchen. From a distance, there was something imposing about her. She had always been tall, six feet, two inches, and an explosive leap that she had leveraged for college athletics. Maria had grown wider, broader from her athletic scholarship-days, but her angular features remained sharp, fierce, to almost drill-sergeant extents in the right light. All of which JP had thought to explain his sudden anxiety away with.

But the root was that she had wanted to talk, and that she was making breakfast for two. That was terrifying.

“Morning!” Her brown visage stretched to accommodate a wide, earnest smile, “Trying to nail these eggs real quick here... go sit or something, Jean.”

He gulped. He sat. He waited.

The small, round table was barely enough to accomodate JP on a good day, and when Maria finally sat down, crowding the surface with a mound of eggs and potatoes, it became suffocating. Maria pushed his plate towards him, and began cutting away at the perfectly cooked whites of her egg. Jean-Paul nibbled only out of courtesy, expecting some guillotine to drop for an as-of-yet unknown transgression. He even contemplated lashing out first, some lunging verbal strike, something like “you haven’t made me breakfast in ages; did you poison me?”.

He then made the mistake of growing complacent and taking far too large a bite of egg. Maria struck.

“I was thinking that we should move out of this place.”

'and finally go our separate ways.'​

Jean-Paul choked.

A day ago, a night ago, he would have been fine with the idea. He was sure of it. He had dreaded the idea of going home, had staved off every logical opportunity to call it a day with another drink, or an ill-advised order of dumplings. But now, threatened with a prospect he thought he would have revelled in, Jean-Paul felt an aching confusion. He could feel himself shaking, and the blood that ran through his arteries turning to poison. His fingers felt numb at their tips, and his legs shook and shuddered, some almost-ticklish sensation running through them.

He needed to leave.

Jean-Paul could hear too much of his own blood pumping to acknowledge any of Maria’s protestations as he burst through the door. He took out his phone again, finally deciding to process Des’ texts.

I meet Alvaro at 12:30. We'll talk after.

Got it. Here whenever you need.​

He found himself desperately wanting something like last night to come again.
 
  • Sympathy & Compassion
Reactions: Peregrine
Only a few minutes after sending off her text, Des found herself almost regretting banishing JP from any further conversation. That meant she now had nothing to occupy her time for the well-over-an-hour that remained until it was time for her to leave. Desperate and uncomfortable with the silence that filled her apartment, Des turned on some music and tried to pick up the book she'd started reading and hadn't touched for well over a week. However, before she made it more than a couple of paragraphs, she found herself skipping one song after another, trying to find anything that didn't grate against her ear drums like sandpaper. Eventually, she gave up on the effort, pausing the music altogether and dropping her head into her hands, squeezing her eyes shut tightly as she desperately wished it could just be time for her to leave.

When she lifted her head again, Des gaped in surprise to realize that the clock had jumped well over an hour forwards, and she had somehow missed JP texting her three more times. She scanned the messages, almost reluctantly, before letting out a sigh of relief. Nothing he said required any response from her. She glanced back at the little numbers at the top of her phone, rubbing her prickly hair uncertainly.

Did I fall asleep?

She shook the matter from her head, instead standing up to grab her keys and wallet, and running through her mental checklist to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything important. Keys, cell phone, wallet, badge, gun, long shirt for concealed carry. She made it out to the car, and settled into the driver's seat, turning on the radio by habit. Somehow, the noise didn't seem as grating now that she was on the move.

She made it to the coffee shop where she and Alvaro had agreed to meet with 5 minutes to spare. Traffic had been entirely tolerable, although Des had also taken a circuitous route to avoid the havoc of downtown traffic. As she pulled into the parking lot she found herself once again dreading the wait that was to come, this time with the added burden of wondering how exactly this meeting between her and Alvaro was going to end. However, as she rounded around to the back of the parking lot, she instantly caught sight of Alvaro's bright orange two-door Fiat, sitting in an empty region of the lot. Taking a deep breath, Des pulled up next to the car, her normally small blue Toyota somehow looking massive next to the Fiat.

Alvaro got out of his car almost in sync with Des, a half smile plastered across his face and his black curls bouncing, until he caught sight of Des over the roof of his car, and his face immediately froze. "Goddammit, Des," he all but spat, something like rage flashing in his eyes. "You've already broken up with me, do you really have to spit in my face like..."

He turned away half a second later, and Des could see him taking a deep breath. It didn't take much for her to imagine him forcibly unclenching his curled up hands, even though the view was currently blocked by the car. She'd seen him do that plenty when they'd been living together. Unconsciously, she reached up to touch the short hair at the back of her neck.

Alvaro will lose his shit... Des couldn't even imagine what he would have said if she'd showed up this morning with over a foot of hair. It was so much easier to pretend she'd just wanted to spite him.

"No, it's fine." Alvaro had turned around to face her again, and while his face was still tight, he'd forced a smile. "It's not like we're dating. You can do whatever you want. Can I... buy you a coffee or something while we're here? Pretend we're splitting on friendly terms?"

Des hesitated for a moment, before eventually nodding. "Let's load up my car first, though," she answered. Somehow, coffee with Alvaro seemed better than returning to her silent apartment, but she still wanted to be able to bail at a moment's notice if necessary.

It didn’t take them long to transfer the four heavy cardboard boxes and suitcase of random stuff into Des’ car, and after they were done Alvaro led the way into the coffee shop. He held the door for her as she entered, which earned him a small smile, but both people were very careful not to touch each other or stand too close as they moved up into line.

When they got to the counter, Alvaro stepped up, pulling out his card and ordering a Café Doble for himself (more caffeine than Des ever exposed herself to in one shot, despite the long hours she worked), and a Café Cortado for her. She bit her lip somewhat awkwardly as Alvaro took their number and found a table for two near the window. He might be a self-centered ass most of the time, but he did have his moments of incredible consideration as well. The last ex-boyfriend she’d had hadn’t been able to remember her coffee preferences even after they’d dated for three months.

Luckily, the coffee came quickly enough that they didn’t have to sit around for long in awkward silence after following their typical line of small talk. “How has work been?” “What did you do last weekend?” “When’s your next race?” “Have you gotten any new sponsors?”

As soon as the coffee arrived, Des scooped it up and took a large gulp, nearly burning her tongue and getting cream on her nose for good measure. Alvaro couldn’t help but laugh as she lowered the cup, and nearly reached out to wipe her nose. He caught his own hand a moment later, redirecting it to snag a napkin and pass it over to her. She took it from him and wiped her nose, somehow feeling like she’d also managed to swallow the awkward tension that seemed to fill the space between them.

Alvaro picked up his coffee as well, taking a much more delicate sip considering his cup was easily twice the size of hers. They sat in silence for another couple of moments, both sipping their drinks, before Des finally sighed, setting her cup back down on the table with slightly more force than she meant to. “Why did you invite me here, Al? And don’t give me more of that ‘parting on good terms’ BS. Why did you really?”

Alvaro flinched, almost looking away before deciding to boldly stare her in the face instead. “It’s not BS. I… I don’t like you being mad at me, Des. I don’t like it one bit.”

“And you thought this would, what, help? That we’d somehow sit down for coffee together, and go back to behaving like infatuated teenagers?”

“No! I… I don’t know. I miss you, Des.”

Des looked away, picking up her cup and clasping it tightly between her fingers. “I… miss you too, sometimes. But we have irreconcilable differences, which you’ve made more than abundantly clear.”

I’ve made clear?” For one moment Alvaro looked flabbergasted, until his face suddenly darkened. “Now don’t you dare go putting the blame on me. I wanted to try and make it work. You’re the one who broke up with me!”

“You know full well why I broke up with you,” Des hissed back, struggling not to let the volume of her voice raise. There were other people in the shop, and she had no desire to force them to become unwilling participants in someone else’s fight.

“Oh, yeah. I know. You wanted to control my life, that’s why.”

“I did not!” Des was losing the battle with her own voice, and forced herself to pause, taking another gulp of her coffee to try and help calm herself down. “All I wanted was to know I wouldn’t come home to my boyfriend lying in the hospital.”

“Oh, yeah. Says the high and mighty police officer who spends her days chasing down violent criminals.”

Des abruptly felt her throat go tight, and she set down her cup roughly, nearly spilling her drink. She tucked her hands under the table, trying to hide the shaking of her hands. “Of course, it never would have occurred to you that I asked my boss about procedure for transferring departments the day I realized I spent every hour you were out racing fearing for your safety.”

Des couldn’t take it anymore, forcing her chair back and standing up in one quick, screeching, movement. She didn’t look at him, didn’t give herself a chance to see whatever expression might be on Alvaro’s face after her words. It didn’t matter anymore.

“Des, wait, I…” Alvaro’s hand flung out to the side, trying to grab her arm as she went past, but he’d forgotten about the coffee cup on the table. His forearm struck against the coffee cup, sending it spinning towards the edge of the table with a clatter, and causing hot liquid to fly towards Des. She felt herself gasp as the burning liquid struck against her waist, even as Alvaro managed to grab her arm.

It felt to Des that time slowed down as she watched the coffee cup tumble towards the floor. Her eyes were burning, her ears rang, and there was a burning hot pain spreading down her leg. Alvaro clung to her arm even tighter, although it felt more like she was frozen in place, kept from moving by some invisible, familiar force, rather than Alvaro’s grip.

It felt like something snapped in her chest, like something invisible was bursting out from within her ribcage, reaching outwards before its nonexistent fingers closed around the coffee cup and ran soothing rivers down her leg. She couldn’t blink, she couldn’t breathe, she could only stare as the coffee cup moved backwards through space, and the liquid that had stained her shirt and burned her skin flew backwards into its container once again, leaving behind nothing but cool relief on her skin. Half an instant later, less than a blink of time, the cup settled back on the table, and Des suddenly found herself able to move again.

“Oh shit,” Alvaro spat out, looking towards the floor and Des’ legs. “Are you okay, did it… Huh?” It was only then that Alvaro seemed to notice that the coffee was standing, perfectly normal and safe, on the table. “I thought I…”

Des used his moment of confusion to pull herself out of his grip. “I’m leaving,” she said, trying to hide the panic in her voice. “Goodbye, Alvaro.” And, with that, she fled out the coffee store before Alvaro had a chance to try and stop her again.

She didn’t stop almost running until she reached the car, unlocked it, and seated herself safely in the driver’s seat. Only once she had the warm security of her car around her did she finally allow herself to take a breath. That familiar feeling, of trying to move, of wanting to move, to blink, to breathe, to anything but being stuck in place. It felt… exactly like last night. Except now she couldn’t get rid of that feeling in her chest, like a massive serpent had curled up around her heart and lungs, waiting and ready to lunge out at the faintest provocation.

She did the only thing she could think of, reaching down and pulling her cell phone out of her pocket, before tipping her hand sideways and allowing it to fall to the seat. Nothing happened. She repeated the process twice more, growing more and more frustrated each time, until she finally grabbed the phone and threw it towards the car window.

With a thump, her chest opened up again, grabbing the cell phone with that tendril of invisible, serpentine air, and gently, almost delicately, pulling it back into her hand. Des gulped.

She didn’t realize what she was doing until she’d unlocked her phone, opened her contacts, and tapped JP’s number. All the same, she didn’t hang up. She needed to talk to someone. Anyone. But there was no one she could trust more than JP.

“Jay…” she whispered when he finally picked up, uncertain, the words suddenly locking in her throat. “I… can we… I need to talk to you. Somewhere private. Can we meet?”
 
Last edited:
  • Nice Execution!
Reactions: Aero Blue
Just as soon as he had sent his latest text message to Des, did Jean-Paul’s inner-demon come a-knockin’, casting aside the vaguely hopeful feeling of anticipation that came with reading Des’ message. He found his fists pounding the shoddy white walls of the complex, each knuckle-bruising strike accompanied by sobering, insidious thought. Boff. The thought that he had been lying to himself about the living arrangement, and his reasons for it. Boff. That he hadn’t given a shit about a cost-saving strategy; that he had wanted reconciliation. Boff. That she was such a bitch.

Such guilt he felt at having thought that particular thought -- and such defiant rage he felt at his guilt -- that his next strike, delivered unto some poor neighbor’s door, came harder. Too hard.

He screamed as he felt a sharp, cold pain that quickly turned numb as endorphins flooded out in response. Jean-Paul focused on the sneaking suspicion that he had very nearly suffered a metacarpal fracture, before turning to survey his handiwork. The wood was dented inward, jagged markings like the edges of a snowflake surrounding the ‘wound’. From beyond the weakened structure, he could hear the shouting of man and woman within: “What the hell?” “What the fuck was that?”. Loud. To Jean-Paul, it seemed almost hostile.

“What the fuck ARE YOU?” Jean-Paul shouted back at the door, his left hand gently cradling his right.

Ah fuck.

He retreated, once again, to the enveloping grey of the apartment stairs, positive that he had made it just in time to avoid whichever poor sap had come running out the ruined door. Hands kept carefully to himself -- and just as well, for the hardened grey of the stairwell walls would have certainly broken something -- Jean-Paul descended four flights, before bursting out the complex exit, not bothering to return the mailman’s greeting with anything more than a labored grunt.

Where in the whole-wide-fuck would I even go?

Living at the precinct was a horrific idea, and the image of stomping around the office smelling of a suit worn for the ninety-ninth straight day seemed an inevitability. Living in the ride was altogether unpalatable, and motels were questionable affairs at best. But worst of all was attempting to stomach the prospect of looking for another apartment, the idea that he’d have to fill it with the various trappings of his life -- the furniture, the microwave, the ‘stuff’ -- and the terrifying concept of having to arrange, rearrange, clean and maintain them. All by himself, no less.

The thought clung to his mind like an adhesive sludge as he tried brushing it away, shaking his head as he made his way to the apartment lot. The best news of the day presented itself in the form of a bulge upon his left pocket, car keys he had kept in yesterday’s choice of pants despite not having driven to work. A button caused an old, beige Honda Accord to whimper in response. From afar, the rusted vehicle looked almost meek, dull and complacent. The second best news of the day presented itself as he shoved his form through the door, unto a seat that somehow wasn’t properly adjusted for the only driver the car had ever known; a deep, rumbling void sounded from the depths of his body. Direction.

Maybe McDonald’s wasn’t a viable option to live either, but it was a grand retreat for the time-being.

And so idle roads turned to mid-day traffic before finally morphing into the congested parking lot of a McDonald’s plaza. Before long, the palace of caloric excess presented itself before him, and he entered, taking care to ignore the homeless man sprawled comfortably on a bench next to the entrance, lest he himself was tempted to consider it for his alternative living arrangement. The kind girl who took her order looked nothing like Maria, which Jean-Paul considered a blessing as he committed to inhaling four double-cheeseburgers, an apple-pie, large fry, and coke.

A shameful sort of therapy, Jean-Paul had to admit to himself, but not the only one he’d indulge in. The second one was investigation. Taking an empty seat by the window, he procured his phone to make use of McDonald’s most sought after product following the Big Mac: free WiFi.

Two doubles down and the search bar of his phone browser read: ‘average rate of human hair growth’.

Half an inch a month. Six a year.

Jesus, he muttered to himself as he did the math, before the white of his phone browser turned to the dark screen of an Incoming Call from ‘Pardna’. Des. He felt himself betray a sharp, shrill exhale that compelled him to survey his surroundings to see if anyone had noticed the embarrassment. A greasy finger pressed upon the green ‘Accept’ button, and Jean-Paul listened. He listened, which was why he knew better than to interject through Des’ intermittent, almost uncertain pauses, the tension in her voice. The optimist in him thought Des had chanced on something else spectacular, the pessimist figured that Alvaro had simply flipped his shit. The humanist thought that even the optimist wasn’t thinking very kindly at the moment (and that the spectacular was more accurately the horrifying), and the detective was thinking of all the not-so-obvious reasons she needed somewhere private.

“... Yeah. I got you. Somewhere private.” Jean-Paul’s tongue-clicked as he thought of a spot that fit the bill, “The arcade from two months back that closed down after the shooting. Bloor Street. Don’t, uh, ask me how I know this, but the back-door still opens without a hitch if you jimmy it a little.”

Maybe that’d be his next home.

“Want anything from McDonald’s?”

In any case, JP had at least two doubles, a pie and the ‘sub-optimal’ fries to offer by the time he set out.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Peregrine
Des declined McDonalds, knowing that JP would probably be bringing food along anyways, and she'd take a fry or two when he offered it to her. All the same, food was the last thing on her mind right now. She stared at the cell phone in her hand for a moment longer, before abruptly dropping it like it had burned her. It bounced off the edge of her leg, and then dropped down between the seat and the parking break. She was forced to start fishing it out a moment later when she realized she didn't know the way to the arcade from here, especially not if she wanted to avoid traffic, but abandoned the effort a split second later when she suddenly noticed Alvaro opening the door to leave the coffee shop.

She was driving out of the lot before she had a chance to register anything more than the surprised look on his face, but also knew he'd be texting her within the hour, and calling her repeatedly before the end of the weekend, when she steadfastly avoided any type of contact. If she was really unlucky, he'd be at the precinct before the end of next week, determined to speak to her. He certainly wasn't the giving up type, that was for sure.

A few blocks down the road, she pulled over on the edge of the street, sighing and once again repeating the process of trying to track down her cell phone. Briefly, very briefly, she felt the frustration growing enough that she felt the thing in her chest thrum like a tight bowstring, ready to snap at the faintest provocation. Des forced herself to pause then, taking a couple of deep breaths to calm herself down before resuming the search for her phone for the last time.

With her phone in hand to provide her directions, it didn't take long for Des to reach Bloor Street, and track down the building. She hadn't been involved in this particular case, the man who'd brought a gun into the arcade had been arrested on the spot, but she'd attended the funeral for the 13 year old boy who'd died, along with four other representatives from the bureau. Someone had apparently decided it wasn't worth the money or the bad publicity it would take to reopen the arcade, and it had sat completely abandoned since that day. At the very least, it meant that the parking lot was all but empty, and Des joined the one other car that had decided to use the empty lot as a staging ground for their exploration of the other shops on Bloor.

After a moment's contemplation, she decided to wait for JP in her car, rather than heading into the back of the building. Normally she wasn't the superstitious type, but the idea of sitting alone in a building where several people had nearly died had her on edge. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that she'd now seen the impossible all but four times in a row. She didn't want to add "ghosts" to that list. At least, not without her partner backing her up.

However, as soon as she caught sight of JP's Honda pulling into the lot, she was up and out of her seat, locking her car and marching towards the back of the building before he even had a chance to offer a greeting. She could only hope he'd forgive her the discourtesy.

However, just as she was about to round the corner to the back of the building and block the parking lot from sight, she paused, glancing back towards her partner with a pale face and tightly pressed lips. Every bit of her expression seemed to be urging JP to hurry up, but she didn't actually call out to him, or physically rush him in any way. She waited as patiently as she could manage until he caught up, and then continued towards the back door.
 
  • Bucket of Rainbows
Reactions: Aero Blue
JP’s arrival was less than graceful, his attempt to smoothly exit the side of his Honda complicated by the prospect of balancing soft-drink, car-keys, take-out bag and the need to both close the door and clean the fry-oil off his fingers. His two hands suddenly found very much wanting, -- and the whole debacle reminding him of the man-goat-lion-river-crossing riddle -- JP opted to handle the soft-drink first on its own, setting it atop the car. Then came the hefty bundle of fast food, a quick retrieval of napkins to clean his fingers, and then the keys.

The door slammed, the button clicked, the car beeped, and JP made his way towards Des. A few steps in, he had considered doubling back for the sole purpose of clandestinely removing the wrappers of the two doubles he had already downed, just in case Des chanced to look into the bag to snag a fry or so. It had been too late, however, and JP had caught the sight of her face then, urgency scribed upon it. His pace quickened, as he came to terms with the fact that Des already knew more than enough about his early-death eating habits.

Jean-Paul had resolved, during the brief catch-up walk, that he’d give her until the door to lead the conversation, and then he’d take it upon himself to initiate. Equal parts a kindness, and equal parts self-awareness; navigating personal dramas could sometimes seem as involving as weaving treatises and dissertations, and Jean-Paul had no facility with the opening line.

Nothing came during the steps taken around the back of the building, and Jean-Paul -- perhaps reluctant -- decided that he’d delay just a little longer, maybe give Des until he got the door well and truly jimmied.

As it happened, Jean-Paul’s memory had been a fair bit generous towards the state of the place, and the door had needed no jimmying -- it simply gave, revealing the setting within. JP did a slight double-take, in part because the door had been raised and he had missed the step, and also because of the disconcerting juxtaposition. Some of the older arcade machines -- the ones with apparently less salvage value than moving expense, or just the stragglers -- had been more or less entombed within the decrepit premises, and their cartoonish blues and reds were wreathed with darkness, cobwebs and rust. Among other relics, twin basketball machines were tucked away in the corner, a skee ball machine was flanked by sad, plastic orbs, and some defunct game stared at them with a blank, dark screen.

The fuck… they didn’t save Street Fighter.

That was a shit opening line, and he knew it. It was just that his second choice had been: ‘so did Alvaro have an aneurysm?’ He chose to believe the Street Fighter quip saved him from coming off as a complete ass, and continued, “Okay, partner, you look serious. So lay it on me -- I got you.”
 
  • Like
Reactions: Peregrine
Des didn’t realize the catastrophe waiting in her urgency until she’d come to a silent halt in the middle of the abandoned arcade. She barely seemed to take in her surroundings, the arcade cabinets looming like sleeping giants, an abandoned candy wrapper tucked in between two machines, the occasional glint of fake coins that had been abandoned when the shooting began, and no one had bothered to clean up. Even JP’s little quip didn’t seem to break her from the looming panic that was rizing within her when she realized that she was going to have to tell JP something.

He was going to think she was insane! Hell, Des would have thought she was insane if she’d tried to describe things snapping back into her hand like a stretched rubber band, defying all the known laws of physics in the process. What was she going to do/ What was she going to say? What could she say? What could she possibly say that wouldn’t lead JP to thinking she needed to be locked up in a mental institution, sedated under the power of clinical medication?

But JP’s gentle prompting reminded her that she had to speak. She’d dragged him all the way out here, she couldn’t just back out now. Desperate, stalling for time, Des began to pace, only to wince as her foot struck against a loose skee ball that had rolled into the middle of the corridor.

And, just like that, an idea struck her. She reached down to scoop up the ball, it’s hefty weight in her hand somehow reassuring. She didn’t need to tell JP anything. Words were weak, meaningless things. No, she’d show him.

With an inarticulate yell of frustration and release, Des whirled on the spot, flinging the ball with surprising accuracy into the center of a nearby arcade. The heavy ball punched through the protective glass and the screen behind it with the rending sound of shattering glass, and the clatter as the ball bounced around inside the otherwise empty cabinet.

She forestalled whatever sentence of objection was bound to be passing JP’s lips with a raised hand, the strange, icy calmness in her expression belying the rage with which she’d just hurled the ski ball into the screen. She waited, one second, two, enough time for JP to thoroughly observe the damage, to see what madness she’d just enacted. And then, suddenly, a terrible doubt burst up within her. What if she couldn’t… do it again?

It was a foolish thought. She found the thing, coiled, waiting in her chest and… God, she didn’t even have to urge it, nudge it, push it, or even release it. All she had to do was contemplate maybe doing something with it for a split second, and it burst free from her chest, trapping her lungs and body in that alarmingly familiar state of burning paralysis.

It followed the lightning echoes of her thought, arcing through the air and into the hole in the machine. She could feel it diving for the skee ball with unerring accuracy, despite the fact that she couldn’t see it, couldn’t have guessed where it landed inside the machine until a split moment ago. The tendril grabbed the ball, reached out, began to pull it back. She watched, eyes frozen wide, as it flew back through the space, towards her uplifted hand.

Des felt another burst of panic, another burst of hesitation. What if this wasn’t enough? Could JP even see it, the way the ball was traveling back towards her in this frozen moment of time? What if, to him, it just looked like the ball materialized in her hand. It would be momentarily alarming, but nothing you couldn’t find in some magician’s performance. Nothing incomprehensible, unbelievable. It wouldn’t be… enough.

As though driven and guided by her panic, the tendril of thought began to vibrate wildly back and forth, gyrating through the air so quickly she thought her chest was going to rip open. It struck the floor, the ceiling, the cabinet, and Des watched with growing uncertainty and panic as the shattered pieces of glass began to fly back up through the air, collecting fragment by fragment, fitting back together into the broken screen like pieces of the world’s hardest jigsaw puzzle. And then she watched the fractures slowly heal themselves, until the screen remained, untouched and undamaged.

The ball struck the palm of her hand with an audible smack, and suddenly Des could breathe again. Yet she remained in place, frozen as though still locked in that moment, her eyes trained on JP.

“You’ve got me?” Des finally asked, breath coming in short, sharp gasps. Her hand abruptly released, causing the ball to drop to the floor with a heavy thump. “I really, really hope so, Jay. Because I haven’t got anything right now.”
 
  • Love
Reactions: Aero Blue
First, there had been the embers of a confused roar that burned at Jean-Paul’s throat, followed by the jerking recoil of his body, reacting as if under threat of shrapnel. Then, twin compulsions -- an urge to chastise and lambast and shout, against the concern for someone who, it had occurred to him, was locked away somewhere deeper than himself. A dilemma -- whether he should approach her to console her, or step further away to weather her spurt of instability -- that he had answered with stillness.

He had watched her then, with her hand uplifted. His partner, that glorious shaved-head marvel.

Then something had taken him, by the head, by the skull, by whatever it was that was inside. He felt a sensation like a visceral itch, two incessant fingers with long, gnarled nails scraping along the surfaces of the sinuses, beneath the temples, the back of his eyes and the outlines of their sockets. His eyes grew heavy from pressure, a vein bulged, and his body shivered and twitched -- and all the while Jean-Paul stared at the scene before him. Glass floating back into place, the fractal pattern upon the point of impact emerging and just as soon fading away as the surface reformed. The ball, returning to her.

And finally, the question.

Looking at her, breathing like that, desperate, Jean-Paul realized just how badly he wanted her to be okay -- and just how enthralled by the fact that she wasn’t, or, rather, how she wasn’t. She was different now, different different, and that fact comforted him more than the fact that she was still his partner, standing right there with him. He was captured by all the questions, the Prince of Persia fantasies, and the possibility of answer and discovery. It cast all the thoughts of Maria to the wayside.

“Half an inch a month, Des. Did you know that? That’s how fast hair’s supposed to grow.” Jean-Paul’s answer came, breathier than he had imagined, almost as if to match his partner’s, “So you’re goddamned right. I got you, I still do.”
 
Des let out a faint laugh that sounded almost more like a sob, lifting one hand to clutch at the side of her head. Her hair was too short for her to even hook her fingers in, but she still somehow remembered the weight of her hair from that morning, straining her scalp and brushing against her cheeks and the back of her neck. Now, all she could feel was the bite of her fingernails against her skull.

She felt something pushing at the back of her throat and knew, if she let it out, it wouldn't be a scream but a flood of tears. She hadn't even felt this way when she'd broken up with Alvaro, too angry from the heat of the fight, or the night after when she'd curled up alone among blankets that had once warmed two people instead of one. She'd always felt in control of her life, and simply hadn't given sorrow permission to mess with her. Now, however, everything seemed wildly out of her control. She didn't even know what had happened to her, or whether she'd be able to deal with it. Deal with it. She just had to deal with it.

"You've still got me," Des unconsciously repeated, JP's words seeming to be her only lifeline in this moment of uncertainty and panic. For a couple moments longer, she floundered, kept stable only by the invisible sensation of JP's presence, and the sharp pain on her scalp as her fingernails bit into her flesh. Finally, however, she pulled herself up.

"What's happening, JP?" But that wasn't really the question she wanted to ask. What had happened was somehow both immeasurably obvious and entirely incomprehensible. Whatever it was that had happened last night had somehow twisted her, or twisted the world around her, and now she was stuck with it. No, the how wasn't important. What really mattered was...

"What am I supposed to do now?"
 
At last Jean-Paul had completely fought off the urge to sneak glances at the formerly-ruined arcade machine, and his eyes did their level best to match Des’. He settled, in the end, for them to shift frequently between eye and scalp, and fingernails that seemed to press deeper than they should. She looked strange, then, with hair shorter than Jean-Paul was used to, but then that wasn’t it; it was that she looked like she was unravelling, ever so simply. It didn’t befit her.

It didn’t befit her the way unravelling befit him, he and all his ‘therapeutic’ McDonald’s-binging, wall-punching, divorcee-still-living-together ways. It made him uncomfortable, in truth, to be with someone’s troubles this intimately. The problems and anecdotes of witnesses, suspects and culprits were just dead flesh for him to dissect; this was more live, and far more unsettling. It breathed. He felt a chilly shame at his discomfort, both a staunch reminder of his myriad personality flaws, and a failing toward his partner.

He sought to rectify the latter in the only way he knew how -- he pretended.

“We figure it out. We will figure it out.” Jean-Paul stated, adopting as matter-of-factly a tone as he could. Slow, deliberate -- as if he were the perfect embodiment of control to aspire to. The lie there almost caused his speech to crack and falter. “We’re detectives. This should be easy enough for us, right?”

Inwardly, he cringed, because the answer to that was loud and simple: it wasn’t. “They say there’s a ten-twelve hour window after a murder where what we do, what we find out, is make or break. But, seems to me we’ve got all the time in the world to figure this thing out. To talk. To figure out what it is you do, how you’re doing it, and how we can help you live with it.”

He pressed the McDonald’s bag forward, balancing it on both hands, the right which was noticeably red and swollen at this point. McDonaldland therapy wasn’t the greatest thing to be an exponent of, but it was another tool -- and Jean-Paul was trying to throw the whole shed at her.
 
Apparently, the thing to do at the moment was eat. Somehow, Des didn't find the answer fully satisfying, but JP's words told her something else, however incidental it might have been. There wasn't some grand solution, some instant fix-all that would allow her to snap her life back to normal. She could only do what she'd been doing her whole life— living one moment to the next, whatever the hell that entailed.

Right now, that apparently entailed McDonalds. Des grabbed the bag from Jean-Paul before she could think it over too much and pulled the cheap paper open with slightly more aggression than was more than strictly necessary. She reached into the bag only a few moments later, fishing out one of the hamburgers, too stressed to care about her supposed veganism right then. A few quick motions saw the burger unwrapped, the wrapper dropped to the floor to join the litter that filled the rest of the arcade. She took a big bite, chewing and swallowing without really tasting what she was eating.

It was only then that something she'd seen but hadn't been able to fully register was able to penetrate its way through her consciousness. She glanced up at JP, faint traces of concern momentarily overwriting the look of panic that seemed to have etched its way into her features. "Jay..." she said softly. "You... your hand."

Her mind suddenly flashed back to that day, half a year ago, when JP had come into the office with his right hand in a splint. The morning after, Des was finally able to find out over a week later, Maria had broken up with him. Words unconsciously leaked from her lips. "Did you and Maria..."

She swallowed the rest of the sentence before she could complete it. It might be a welcome change of conversation for her, but if she'd learned anything about her partner, it was that he handled matters related to his love-life poorly. Des couldn't help but glance at the McDonald's bag again, its presence suddenly taking on new meaning. She wasn't so stressed that she'd fling her partner into the emotional deep end just to make herself feel a little bit better.

Desperate for a change in conversation, she picked up the bag again, reaching in blindly to find the container of french fries she knew had to be waiting somewhere in its depths. However, as her hand closed first over the burger, then over a cardboard box, and then brushed only against empty air and paper, the silence seemed to swell as though it wanted to swallow her. Her eyes flicked back to his hand.

The thing in her chest suddenly writhed, and before she had a chance to think, to blink, she was seized by stillness, as the unwanted power in her chest surged outwards. But, rather than reaching towards a ball or a cup or any other object, it lunged unerringly towards JP. Des found herself wanting to scream. She tried to grab the thing that was coming from her chest, but she couldn't move. She desperately tried to pull it back, to redirect it, but it seemed to resist any effort on her part. Finally, it coiled around the man, seeming to constrict around his arm before sinking into his skin. Then, it released.

"JP!" she cried, eyes widening in fear as she suddenly found herself able to move again. The bag in her hands dropped to the ground and tipped over, finally spilling the fries she'd been looking for across the filthy carpet. "I'm sorry, oh god, I didn't mean to. You... your hand. What did I do? Are you okay?" Finally out of panicked words, Des gasped for breath, desperately grabbing onto his arm and pulling his hand towards her.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Aero Blue
The matter of his damaged hand had slid to some unconscious corner of Jean-Paul’s mind, even when he had moved to shift the weight of the McDonald’s bag. Her soft-spoken utterance of concern brought it back to the forefront, like a metal can on an incline. He felt suddenly conscious of being perceived, of the way he was perceived, some part of him shifting inward, recoiling. There was the worry that his partner would think that he had struck the wall -- or door, or whatever it was -- in Maria’s presence as he had months ago, that he’d been unable to control his rage again, or, worst of all, that he had struck her.

Granted, Des’ eye was perhaps too good to settle for the latter conclusion, but the thought of being rendered lesser in his partner’s eyes incited a sputtering defense mechanism. It was a blessing, indeed, when Des had opted to reach within the bag instead of continuing. Ronald McDonald’s ‘divine’ patronage had its perks. Still, he deftly averted his eyes when Des’ gaze flickered towards his hand once again. The image defined an aspect of him. One time too many, and it would come to define him entirely.

So he looked again to the skeeball.
Looked again to the arcade game screen, unshattered.
Looked to the exit, suddenly more uncomfortable with himself than with… whatever all this was.

And then he looked back to himself, spellbound, his arm, bound by some force, still as rigor mortis.

His name erupting from Des’ mouth freed him, and her hand upon his arm terrified him. It was a thing, indeed, for some phenomena to work itself upon glass and plastic, but another for it to have its way with him. With matters of skin, flesh, and bone. Without thinking, his hand made to pull back, not he had grown mind-numb, and weak, and did not pull away. His eyes, wide, stared at her, and for but a moment he forgot that she was his partner.

“Shit… holy shit…”

It doesn’t hurt.

His hand -- that had been swollen, turn blue-purple -- had re-aligned and shrunk and healed, and the slight brown tan of his skin had returned to color it. He thought better of that description of events, as aligning and shrinking and healing were processes, actions that occurred over a period of time; had the same been true here? Or had his hand just… happened to become this way again? There was no lingering, waning pain -- not even some phantasmal ache arising from his expectations. His hand, as good as it had been.

“... I think you rewound my arm.”
 
Des desperately inspected JP's hand, looking for anything wrong with it. The fact that there were no apparent signs that he was hurt, the fact that his hand looked as healthy and whole as she'd ever seen it, did nothing to reassure her. However, as she was forced to concede that there was nothing wrong with his hand, she found herself unconsciously inspecting the rest of his arm.

She was searching for... what? Des wasn't entirely sure. All she knew was that there had to be something wrong. Maybe some bruising up further along his arm, where the edge of that strange power had stopped. Maybe some blemish in his skin, some discoloration, that showed things weren't lined up or meeting the way they were supposed to. Worse, she feared that his hand itself would slowly begin to change color, messed up as blood vessels that were supposed to be properly connected had been snapped or twisted or... ruined by the machinations of strange power that seemed to drag things back, willing or not, through space and time.

But, for all of Des' panic, there was... nothing. Eventually she released his hand, still breathing slightly harder than normal from her panic, and watched as he flexed his fingers, testing their range of motion.

"I'm sorry," Dea apologized again. Not so much for the fact that she'd healed him, as fearful of she was of that sudden burst of whatever she was truly grateful that JP was alright, but for her lack of control. "I didn't... I wasn't even trying to. I was just... worried. And then it happened, and I couldn't stop it."

This time it had turned out fine, but what if...

"Oh, god." Des mumbled, all but burying her face in her hands. "What if I do that at work?"
 
“Shit.. well. You’d be… be fucked, right? Fuck.”

Suddenly finding the act of standing too strenuous by far in light of recent events, Jean-Paul allowed himself to fall, slowly lowering himself unto the arcade floor amidst scattered potato fries. He drew his knees as close as he could to his barrel-chest, and lowered his head, firstly to stem the threat of hyperventilation and, secondly, to help himself think. Some part of him came to the realization -- a hopeful one though it was -- that he had spent so much time focused on the unfathomability of it all, that he had made little attempt to do the one operative thing that sustained him: to try and fathom it.

“First time you did that -- no, first time I saw you do that,” Jean-Paul’s words trickled slowly like sap, “I felt something strange, like something was scratching, or tickling, the inside of my head, like a sneeze that wants to come but never does. A brain thing?”

The thought was just a little bit scary.

“Don’t really know what it is you did. You fixed the machine, you fixed the hand, but fucking how? Thought I saw something, just for a bit, doing…” He scratched his head, frustrated. “Well, fuck me Des, I might be crazy, but I thought it came out of you.”

This wasn’t working. He wasn’t fathoming it any better than he had been previously, when the glass shards had re-aligned themselves, when the bruise about the metacarpal unclotted and shrunk. He simply -- and it made him chuckle to consider it -- hadn’t seen quite enough yet.

“... Again. You have to do it again.”
 
Des mirrored Jean Paul’s slump towards the ground, folding in on herself as though the physical action might somehow protect her. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say protect the rest of the world from the thing inside her chest. The thing inside her chest that seemed to lash out at the faintest trace of a thought on her part, leaving her helpless to actually control it.

The statement she’d made only moments before might have been something she’d said in a burst of panic, but now she felt a much deeper rooted fear settling inside of her. There was absolutely no way she could do something like that at work. If anyone saw, if anyone figured out it came from her… She didn’t even want to think about it. Would she end up like some poor sob in those sci-fi thrillers, trapped in some underground lab while psychopathic scientists dissected her to see if they could replicate the effect? Weaponize it?

Hell, should she even have told JP?

Des disregarded that thought as soon as it came to her. No, if she hadn’t told him the fear would have driven her insane. Hell, it still might drive her insane, but JP… he had her back. He always had.

But that didn’t mean that everyone would. There were certainly people at work that she couldn’t trust. But if she couldn’t get this power under control, couldn’t go back to work… Hell, what was she going to do? She would end up locked in her apartment like some agoraphobe, assuming she could even continue to pay her rent. It wasn’t like she’d be able to go on disability. And then…

Des’ slow downward spiral was interrupted by the sound of JP’s voice. It took her several blinks to be able to focus on him, but then all she could do was stare silently as words tumbled out of his mouth. Even after he finished speaking, it took her a couple of moments to realize it.

“Came out of me?” Des finally repeated, incredulous. The statement seemed so ridiculous after all of the thoughts that had been swirling around in her head that she could barely even stand it. “Of course it fucking came out of me, JP. Where else would it have come from? What, did you think there was some invisible floating genie following along behind me, casting magic time rainbows wherever I point? Shit.”

She buried her face in her hands, rubbing vigorously for a moment. When she looked up again, she seemed to have calmed down somewhat. “But… you’re right. I’ve got two options. Let it ruin my life, or learn to control it. And the first one isn’t an option at all. So… that means I have to do it again. Figure out how to make it go. And learn how to make it, well, stop when I want it to stop. And what it can do. And… fuck. I don’t know. Go through some sort of superhero training montage?”

Des giggled then, and somehow that broke the tension that had built up inside of her like a knot. “Hey. JP. I’m going to be a police officer with superpowers.”

And then she was laughing, almost like she was sobbing. And that was a relief too.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Aero Blue
Jean-Paul wasn’t quite as amused, but threw his head back and laughed nonetheless, a slower, measured, almost deliberating laugh that loomed in the bassline accompanying his partner’s giggles. Some small, vain part of the detective almost took offense at the reaming Des had given him for the ‘came out of her’ deduction, but then that was just a small fragment of insecurity he had learned to stow away when it came to his partner. He was far more relieved than he was annoyed, and the slight bit of friendly vitriol was a welcome diversion from the desperation and the apologies and the grasping-at-nothings.

“Think I might of beat you to it, Des.” The index finger of his healed hand danced against his temple as he spoke with an unease that belied the intended levity, “Superhuman intellect right in here and what the ladies like to call ‘a preternatural charm.’”

He laughed again, and laughed some more at the thought of it -- laughing at his own jokes like a dunce. What a great, wondrous thing it was.

“Shitdamnit. I guess that locks me in as the sidekick.”

Jean-Paul’s eyes drifted about the arcade, as he decided perhaps that it was best to unfocus, to gaze about, to take it all in before the whirlpool consumed him, and their laughing, and their troubles, and his stupid rejoinders. “This isn’t… the most cinematic place for a montage, but it’s about as private a place as I can think of that isn’t home..”

A sharp intake of breath as he stumbled into that trap of his own design, remembering his troubles. Could he even bear to go back tonight?

“Could maybe start with rewinding these fries back to within the limits of the five-second rule, and then… Des, do you got somewhere I could stay? Just, for like a night or so.”
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Peregrine
"Beat me to it, huh?" Des replied, breaking into another fit of giggles. This time her amusement seemed far more genuine than desperate, and the smile she offered him for the quip seemed to reach her eyes as well. At any other time she would have turned it back around at him, ribbing him for his growing belly or his lack of a girlfriend, but she didn't want to lose this lightness. Not if one of her jabs struck too close to home, as they had an unfortunate tendency to do, even when she was only trying to play with him.

Instead, she ran her fingers unconsciously over the arcade's carpet, catching the edge of one nail on a fraying loop of fabric. JP was right. There was no reason for anyone else to come to this place, and even if someone heard noises from in here, they'd likely assume it was only a couple punks causing trouble, and wouldn't do anything about it.

It was time for her to get started.

"Always got food on your mind, hmm," she mumbled, already having accepted his suggestion despite her half-hearted teasing. Des hated wasting food, and this was the perfect combination of practicing and making sure that the fries didn't end up in the trash can. However, she hesitated before daring to try, well, anything. As resolute as she might have sounded a couple of moments ago when she'd sworn she'd control this thing, rather than letting it control her, fear still lingered inside of her. She didn't understand this strange phenomenon. What would happen if her little experimentations were having some unknown, nasty side effect?

Just as she was starting to feel the bubbles of panic rising up in her again, the rest of JP’s sentence washed through her mind. Suddenly she remembered his broken hand. It might be healed now, but that didn’t make the situation that had provoked such action from him any less present.

“You know my couch is always open, Jean,” Des consoled to the best of her worn ability right now. “Especially now that Alvaro isn’t around. You’re welcome to stay as long as you can stand the shitty cushions.”

And that was it. He wouldn’t want anything else from her. Not pity, and certainly not questions. Des reached out towards the fallen bag, stretching slightly to grab it without having to stand up. After dragging it over, Des fished out the fry container from within it, holding it in one hand. And then…

Fries, she thought, uncertain if the mental articulation would even do anything to direct the thing in her chest. Go…

But it was already going, trapping her in cold, silent paralysis as the invisible tendril crawled out of her chest, before splitting into numerous small strands. They flew towards the ground, picking up the fries, and Des watched with frozen fascination as they wrapped around the fries, causing them to tumble backwards, dust and grease from the filthy carpet shedding off them like water rolling off a duck’s feathers, as they flew back into the container.

Keep going, Des prompted with a sudden burst of inspiration. It was so easy to keep the power active than it was to make it stop. She’d already figured that one out. And, as the strands bound together again to coil around the entire container, Des was able to feel a faint heat from the cardboard that had been lost long hours ago.

What would happen if she kept going? Would they uncook themselves, right there in the box? Would they turn back into one potato? And if she kept going what then? What were they before a potato? Would they transform into dirt and water and minerals right in that stupid red and gold McDonalds container?

Now that she’d thought about it, would she even be able to stop it from happening?

Des was about to start panicking again, locked in that cold moment in time, waiting to watch a bunch of fries unravel right before her eyes. What had made her think that was a good idea? God, what a waste of goddamn food…

And, with that thought, the spell broke with an almost audible crack. The tendrils withdrew, and she could breathe again. She gasped once, swallowing past the tightness of her throat. Instead, she offered a shaky smile to JP. “F...Fries?”
 
  • Like
Reactions: Aero Blue
That familiar sensation, the stranger that tickled the brain, took him once again as the ‘thing’ -- things -- wrapped around the sticks of potato and returned them to their receptacle. Des had been somewhat unfair to him; he hadn’t always food on the mind, just often, and there was a thought that overrode the matter of french fries. There was something almost violating about that sensation, something intrusive, and it was a worry; would it recur each time Des used her abilities? Would it recur even if Des didn’t use her abilities? Would everyone near her experience it?

Would it be best not to tell her, just as she was breaking out of her frenzied desperation?

He pursed his lips, both uncomfortable with the idea of Des as some sort of contagion-carrier, and also wholly unsuited for the task of ‘coaching’, “Ye-yeah, great job. Great job!”

Jean-Paul understood that, above all else, his most important function was simply to be Des’ partner, her moral support, some stalwart bastion that would never fail her. Nonetheless, the lack of practical knowledge bothered him. It wasn’t like coaching soccer -- dribbling drills, passing and kicking and scrimmages -- there was no science at work, no precedent tried and true. Just… the good old theory of ‘repeat, repeat, repeat’.

He bit into a fry, hiding his apprehension -- for what if it was now, say, a cursed magic fry? -- before a sudden inspiration struck him, “... so, you can rewind, do you think you’d be able to, shit, I don’t know: re-wind the re-wind -- put the fries back on the floor? Or, the fry that I just ate… would you be able to get it from out my thr -- no, on second thought, let’s not try that one.”


In the more recent periods of their partnership, Jean-Paul had made it something of a point, not necessarily a conscious one, to keep himself away from Des’ couch as often as possible. Between being married with Maria, not-being-married-but-sharing-a-domicile, and Alvaro, the prospect of crashing on someone’s furniture had seemed somewhat off to him.

For starters, and although Jean-Paul was loathe to admit it, was the shift of the power balance. Des and Jean-Paul were partners, and to rely on someone else’s domicile for the night subverted that. But nonetheless, here he was, posterior firmly sunken within Des’ couch. She hadn’t asked, which Jean-Paul was eternally grateful for, and so he wouldn’t ask either; about Alvaro, that was.

“We got Sunday, still, to work things out at the arcade.” Jean-Paul yawned as he stretched his limbs out on the coach, “Rest of the boys are definitely going to ask you about the hair situation.”

He grinned; he was sure that was the least of her worries.