2022-04-24 - Not Chilled Out

Jules isn’t gone long. Long enough to run her errands and grab lunch while she’s out. The plan, after all, is to finish packing and hit the road while there’s still plenty of light.

The door slams on her return. Jules, carrying a couple plastic bags, just leans back against the door as soon as she’s safely inside and starts to cry.

From the living room: "Look, the strippers aren't here yet -- or is that you, Una?" Did Della just put her foot in it -- there's crying -- she speeds down the hallway... and double-takes but doesn't slow down, not more than it takes to actually stop, when she sees it's, "Jules. Jules?" She reaches for her friend. "Are you okay?" No, she's not okay.

“No,” Jules gets out. She’s still holding onto her shopping bags. In fact, her fists are clenched so tight that her knuckles are white. “There was a guy with a gun— and it was fine, nothing happened— he was licensed— but I saw it—“ And now here she is, sobbing in the way she didn’t let herself do in public.

"Oh, Jules -- " Jules who drove home -- "You're home now. Here, give me those," but Della won't fight her if she wants to, needs to, keep the bags. "You're home. Cry all you want, here's my shoulder," and a hug, and kleenex or at least toilet paper down the hall, "I'm so glad you made it, made it back. Here."

“And this guy wouldn’t fucking stop bothering me—“ Jules finally releases the bags, but she has to force her fingers to let go. Once her hands are free, she furiously swipes her fist across her eyes. Then she more or less flings herself on Della, desperate for that solid presence of another person, a safe shoulder to cry on.

"Well, fuck him. You made it. You're here," as Della's taking the bags, as she lets them slither down her leg to her foot and thence the floor so they don't crash down, so nothing else breaks. And then Jules is on her, and she's reaching awkwardly back one-handed to flip the deadbolt before Jules gets both arms, leaning against the door for stability, murmuring all sorts of repetitive things: You're here. You're home. I've got you. Home.

Somewhere, on the other side of the laptop, someone's trying to call Della back and failing.

It takes awhile before Jules can calm down. And even then, it’s not so much calm as cried out. Finally, when the heaving sobs diminish, she pulls away and gives Della a teary smile. “Thanks. I bought weed, by the way. I thought maybe it would be helpful when I’m out, if I can’t, I don’t know, get into the right state of mind. But change of plans, I want to light that shit up now.” She looks a little pleading, perhaps, when she asks Della, “I don’t know if you smoke, but will you at least sit with me?”

Della lets her go without letting her go, smiling down to her in reply; she lifts a finger, not to wipe away Jules' tears exactly, but to trace the arc of one brow. "I hear you. I don't anymore, ordinarily -- today I will. Your room? Want munchies?"

“Yes please,”Jules says fervently. “Popcorn? Let’s make popcorn.” She finally gets moving, reaching to take her bags back from Della. “I can take those. My room first, then we go make popcorn. And maybe order a pizza.”

Della reaches down to get them, to hand them over; "Deal. All the pepperoni." And olives. And mushrooms. All of that. This smile's quick, though she's still studying Jules closely, her own lashes a little damp. "I'll just grab my laptop." And her tea, and a box of kleenex along the way, but she'll be quick to catch up after dumping her computer in her room.

“Yay.” It’s a weak little thing. Jules’ room is not perfectly tidy, but neither is it a hellhole of mess. It’s lived in, but she doesn’t have to toss dirty clothes into a hamper before Della gets there.

First things first: the window is opened. Her bed is right under it, so after taking off her shoes, Jules sits there cross-legged and digs through one of her bags for the little paper bag from her final errand. There’s a modest amount of weed and papers. Jules sets to rolling, her fingers fumbling. “Goddammit!” She’s more frustrated than she rightly should be.

"Hey, hey. Want to give me that?" Della kicks off her slippers and moves to sit there too -- unless that looks to be a problem, in which case an actual chair, the floor, something will do. She puts the kleenex box between them, fluffing the tissues like a miniature campfire.

The bed is just fine with Jules. She passes over the paraphernalia, flexing her fingers once they’re free. “My fingers are a little numb,” she admits. “It’s not just the nerves. There was a guy in there—the guy with the gun—and he was like us, you know? I could feel it. And I got curious and wondered what he could do, so I looked at him, and it was almost like I looked into him.” Despite the situation, Jules can’t help but sound a little wondering. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

"And you hadn't even lit up yet," Della murmurs with some humor, bent to her task: rearranging the herb, keeping it even before rolling it up. She has to restart once, but do the fingers ever really forget? "What do you mean, look into him? Like an x-ray?"

“Yeah, right?” Jules’ lips twitch towards a smile, though it won’t last. “I guess. Like, I wanted to know that piece of him, and I all of a sudden I could see it. He can move things. It was there, like a kind of...force, twisting and moving. It doesn’t make sense when I try to put it in worlds, does it?”

Della's frowning, but with concentration rather than displeasure; to the joint, "That's really cool. I don't suppose you checked with him, to make sure? I wonder if he could tell... He didn't draw the gun, did he?" She sets flame to it the old-fashioned way, with the lighter: rotating, rotating, all set to hand it over for the first draw.

“He could tell I was staring so I stopped,” Jules explains, watching Della craft the joint. “I was going to apologize for it, but that’s when I saw it.” The gun. “And then I just had to get out of there.” With the joint rolled and lit, she reaches out to take that long first toke. Jules may not do this often—her housemates certainly won’t have seen her lighting up or smelled it on her clothes—but she clearly knows how to inhale and hold it before a slow release. “No, he didn’t draw it. He seemed like an okay guy, actually. He’s a bounty hunter or something—I didn’t even know that that was a real thing. But he asked if I was okay, and he was ready to get all up in Lobster Boy’s face when he wouldn’t leave me alone. Offered to drive me home and gave me his card. Here.” The joint’s for Della now, while Jules shifts to get into her front pocket.

Della doesn't ask if she'd shoplifted, if she went back, if she'd already paid -- she's just nodding, slowly. "That sounds straight out of a movie," she murmurs. "Bounty hunter. As long as he doesn't go after our deer," just a little teasingly. "But wait, Lobster Boy? That same guy from before," from the video, from all that? Then Della gets her own toke, taking the care of someone for whom it's been years, her gaze rising to Jules again.

“Yeah, that guy.” There are two cards, not just one, that Jules retrieves from the pocket of her hiking pants. “He gave me his card too, and I’m just gonna use it block his number in case he finds out mine. He’s crazy enough to go looking for it.” A black, angry scowl accompanies that. “That’s him.” She taps one of the cards. “And this one is the bounty hunter.” Both cards go on the bed between them, and then she reaches for the joint again. Another long hit.

So, after digging in her pocket, Della aims to get both cards photographed. They're in the same shot, but a quick-scrawled edit gives one a frowning face and the other a... well, it's a little flat-mouthed, but closer to smiling, at least. "You want that I run a search on them now, or after pizza? Sounds like you don't think they were together," is still a question. She's in no hurry for her own turn, but her nostrils flare, drinking it in.

The question earns a little shudder. Jules has her eyes closed now, wanting to feel the smoke at work within her. “Honestly, I don’t want to think about it right now.” She exhales and cracks open her eyes. “You think I’m ever gonna get over it?”

"You don't have to," Della murmurs, and checks the reverse side of the cards before stacking them and setting them to the side. Out of the way. "You will. ...The gun thing, right? I didn't even know it hit you that hard."

“Shit, yeah.” Jules lets out a shaky little laugh. “I fucking peed my pants. The guy pointed the gun at me and threatened to blow my brains out. Over a fucking PlayStation.” This deserves another hit, though it’s not technically her turn.

"Damn." How could Della have let that slip past? She doesn't ask herself out loud; she doesn't ask Jules; she does slide her fingers over in a light touch, to signal her share. "...Insurance? Health insurance," though her tone recognizes that the US, at least, isn't exactly known for that. A shade darker, "That guy should pay."

Jules sits with her smoke for another minute or so, in no hurry to answer. Her exhale this time is more of a sigh. “He’s in jail. That’s enough.” She leans over to the open window, carefully tapping the ash from the tip in there in lieu of an ashtray. “I’ll clean it up,” she states, offering the joint again. “I should go get a plate.”

"All right," is more acceptance -- for now -- than agreement. Discussions of his insurance company, if he's got one, can wait. Softer, "All right," and Della takes the joint back, holding it for a moment before her own slow draw. She's in no hurry. This doesn't often happen. It might not happen again.

"Ravn..." There's a thread of smoke along his name. Musingly, "He works with people, students, who deal with things like that."

“I’ll be back in a minute.” Jules leaves Della with the joint and hops down from the bed to go retrieve a dessert plate from the kitchen. Two beers, too. There’s no comment about Ravn’s line of work, not when she leaves and not when she comes back.

“Here.” The sill isn’t wide enough to balance the plate, so she just sets it down between them. “I don’t know if you want it or not, but I brought you a beer just in case.” She most definitely does, and she’s got a bottle opener with her too. “I wasn’t gonna tell you,” she says then, apropos of nothing. “I went on a date last night.”

It isn't something Della follows up on, not when Jules leaves and not when she comes back.

"Thanks." And, "...Yes." It's still afternoon, but this part at least is all good. Della, smoking slowly, lets Jules do the honors for all that the lighter's nearby. "Did you now," she murmurs with a smile upward. "How was it?" This date, this thing that Jules hadn't been going to say.

Jules knows no fancy lighter tricks. Just a regular bottle opener, then the beer passed over in exchange for the blunt.

She’s notably more relaxed when she settles back down. The pot is working in her, easing the edges of her tension and the near-hysteric after effect of shock. “I didn’t tell you,” she repeats with a meaningful look at Della, “because it’s not a thing, unless it becomes a thing, and you’d make it a thing. Which it isn’t. It’s not a thing.”

She drinks, slowly, the way she'd drunk in the smoke. "It's not a thing," very-capable-of-arguing Della murmurs peaceably, for all that her glance is knowing, or at least speculating, bright.

“Not a thing,” Jules confirms with a firm nod. Another drag. Nothing more is immediately added. Jules fixates on the window through this hit and thereafter, watching the way the smoke passes through the screen.

Then she eyes Della again. “I see you over there, making it a thing.” This strikes her as funny, all of a sudden, and soon she’s laughing.

"Nah," says Della, drawing out the vowel. "Why would I make it a thing?" Thii-iiing. "You," and one brow goes up, pointedly, "brought out this joint so I wouldn't ask. Sabotage." That's Jules, black ops, Della's own smile all throughout her voice.

“I’m tricky that way,” Jules readily agrees. At least she’s smiling now. There isn’t much left to the joint, but she offers that short stub over to Della once she’s carefully ashed it. No ashes on the covers.

Della takes it, reaches for the plate to go with it, has to balance all that with the beer now tucked into one cross-legged knee. "Devious," amused as it is, might as well have an extra couple syllables.

Jules looks mighty pleased with herself, and all the more so for this affirmation. “I’ll tell you this much,” she says, leaning in like a conspirator. “Good kisser. That’s a thing.”

"You don't say," the other woman marvels. "Going to rate him on Friendzone? On a scale from... mmm, one to whatever." That's helpful.

“No. That just seems icky.” Jules wrinkles her nose. “You can’t tell, Della. Okay? People like to talk, and it’s not a thing. And don’t tell him what happened today, okay?” She is very earnest on this point, big-eyed look and all.

Almost as an afterthought, forgetful that she’s already blown her own cover, Jules adds, “Who says it’s a him, anyway?”

You did.

But what Della says is, her smile a little lopsided and quite, quite fond, "They don't need to know." The rating? The kissing? Both? "You'd better make sure I know who, is all, so I can properly pull the wool," hear how that rhymes, "over his eyes." She surely doesn't need to address the last out loud, does she?

“You know,” says Jules, refusing to name names. “Who they are.” Look what she did there. She thinks she’s crafty again, trying to bite back her giggle. “Come on,” she says then, “let’s order pizza.” And continue playing this you-don’t-know-what-I-know game, perhaps. It’s better than the alternatives, the crying and the shaking.

"Mmmm." Della crinkles up her nose at crafty, crafty Jules and, having had her way with the very last of the joint, sets the stump on the plate and stretches. Strrretches. Whoops, beer; she rescues it only just in time. "That's right, I suppose I do. I suppose I know..." slow, teasing, and all since Jules said 'they,' "all of them." Another stretch, a glance out the screened window, and she unfolds her legs and swings them down.

It's much better, just now. And, just in case, she'll aim to go first down the stairs.