underachievement | IC INBOX + OPEN POST / memes, psl, etc.

[ With him on one side and her bottle within reach, she can pass out on the couch, if it comes to that, and have everything she needs at hand. She's equipped to sleep through the night, she's prepared for it, and the worst that could happen is that it simply doesn't come. Insomnia rears its haggard hatchet-faced head. ]

Yeah. [ She plucks at Rocky's ear, gently digging her thumbnail into the crease against his skull. His leg doesn't shake, like a movie dog's, but he does shift his head an inch higher on her thigh, nuzzling for her stomach. ] I can deal with that. [ Demonstrating then and there, she has her deepest gulp of the evening. As long as he stays dead. She absorbs herself in softly stroking Rocky. No one's gonna do any twisted shit to him with her around, and she's going to be around.

Day to day, then week to week, then month to month, from Rouen to the mirrored villages, she couldn't picture herself that far ahead. Here, she can, even if it's a portrait of her squatting in a warehouse, warming herself by the fire of a trash can. ]

[ her more-or-less instant agreement soothes him some, and he nods at her assurance that he knows isn't for him anyway. frank turns his head to watch her shower rocky in affection, smiling as he presses a warm kiss to the side of her face. his problems are mirror-images of hers. the soundeaters and mayorship aside, he's grateful they got away from kilgrave and everything else his presence entailed. it still feels like a fever dream, but being here and having trish, kamala, and karen safe is worth more to him than any of the rest. and over the long stretch he's had to think about it, he's convinced himself all the kids got to go home too, eventually. at least for el and the gang, that place wasn't so different from where they were from.

the real conflicting emotions come from the villages, and not even because he misses having superpowers or hanging with first tier heroes. he just... isn't sure he has a place in the world anymore. jessica, in her own flighty way, keeps him anchored, but he's still in danger of spiraling, he knows.]

I told Bruce that I'd stay, if I got the choice. [ and now that he's back, he's not sure he meant it. kamala and jessica are both back with their families and they remember everything he does. karen and curt have also gotten the full skinny by now, too, even if they mostly think he's insane. that doesn't matter as long as they stick by him, and they do - like glue - because karen especially isn't some biological approximation of his friend. ] I'm glad I didn't.

[ get a choice. decisions are far and few between in his life anyway, and he knows he's predictable as all hell when it comes down to it. he hunkers down as close as he can while he sips from his beer and watches hockey out of one eye. questingly, his free hand rests on her knee, gently rubbing calloused fingers back and forth against denim. ]

Glad I didn't either.

[ She would have gone back, despite the unknowns. As good as her chances were of ending up here, where she more or less fits the mold of her own life, as far as anyone knew, they were just as good that she'd land in another Jessica's universe and have to figure out what to do then. Hell, she could have stumbled onto her own timeline too early and had her mind trapped in her body again. In the villages, she avoided thinking about it until she couldn't anymore. She woke up in her apartment before those discoveries could be made.

Maybe they would have fucked it up, if the villagers and clones crafted their own way home. Maybe they still will, if they're out there.

Rocky sighs dejectedly when she lifts her hand from him, the move over and cover the broad back of Frank's. ] If we were cloned, maybe we're still there. [ She airs the suspicion that's been needling at her. It doesn't make sense as to why they would remember it, but nothing there made a lick of any damn sense. ]

[ her admittance again calms him, and the brush of her palm against the back of his hand has hair standing at the back of his neck and arms. he settles there, his palm wrapped around her thigh so he can appreciate the weight of her hand at his wrist. then she goes on and he glances over at her, trying to gauge her mood surrounding the theory. it isn't a pleasant thought, maybe, but it's also not the worst thing. he'd rather some knockoff of them be there than the real thing at the end of the day, even if it is creepy as fuck. ]

Does it matter?

[ it's a dull ask even as he takes a long swig before shifting in so he can rest his ear at her shoulder, crooked nose hitting the base of her clavicle. her heartbeat fills his head and it's all he can do to convince himself not to crawl into her lap and disappear. ]

[ She tips her head against his, giving her neck a rest. Her thumb rubs a curved line back and forth across his knuckles. If Jess is still there, along with him and Kamala, they're living under the same roof, making dents in the mysteries. Jess will be remaining vigilant for the possibility of Kilgrave's arrival, and harboring her personal motive to find and destroy her DNA records. Nothing short of a sudden teleportation home or a dimension elsewhere was going to stop her. ]

Not unless they try and kill us to take our places. [ She's kind of kidding. Clone!Jess could attempt it on a bender, but aside from that, she wouldn't interfere. She'd slink off and forge a new identity, or walk peacefully into the ocean. Clone!Frank could move to a podunk town and open an animal shelter. Clone!Kamala would probably go with him. If they ever came looking for the Jess they knew, this one would cover her tracks. ]

[ he snorts like that was a funny joke even though he knows it wasn't, well, not really. frank blindly reaches out to set his beer down, which tips but miraculously doesn't fall. he twists towards her that much more, wrapping his arm around her waist so he can rest his full weight against her, something he's grateful he can do again without a single worry she won't be able to support him. ]

Remember when we ran away? [ his throat dries up just to recall it for himself. he'd never felt so free in his life and yet... ] What if we did that again?

[ at least, for a little while. until the world starts making sense again. ]

[ Jess balances her glass on the nearby dormant radiator. Rocky is nonetheless disturbed, tucking his head in against the side of her leg. Both her arms encircle him when he leans into her. He's heavy and she likes bearing the weight of him. She adjusts her head, her cheek nuzzling his hair and her hand splayed across his back. Her other is slung loosely around his hip.

This close, he can probably hear her swallow, similarly parched by the question. He knows that she does and prefers not to. Where he goes next is the last proposal she expected. She grips gently at his side, the hand on his back slipping down an inch or two. ]

Where would we go?

[ he keeps one eye on the dog, smiling softly against her skin at the way he steadfastly sticks by jessica - too like his owner. frank hugs her even tighter, feeling some of the pent-up tension in his frame leech away as she encircles him, a silent pledge to protect the same as rocky. it's something he should feel guilty taking comfort in, but he can't bring himself to feel anything but safe and calm. ]

Does it matter? [ it's pitched low this time, dropped close by her ear as he loses the battle with himself to curl up in her arms, one broad thigh twining with hers. ] Somewhere that's just ours.

Edited 2019-07-13 14:24 (UTC)

[ "Does it matter?" he asks for the second time, inferring the question is on his mind as often as it is hers. Does any of it? If she opens the office? If she returns Trish's calls? If she eats enough? If she wakes up? Does it matter to her, the people she would disappoint if she gave in to her dispassion? Jess has been gone so long from her real life, she's estranged from it.

Why not run away? It's what she did the first time. She moved out of Trish's, got an office, started to make a living, and then Kilgrave revealed himself to have infected it. It's what she did after the Hand's ninja bullshit, and then she woke up practically shackled to that zombie psychopath in another place and time. The villages, she never came to trust, and she got through every day convinced it was inevitable, so there would be no more goddamn surprises.

If this ends differently, in a world where she feels a degree of control, maybe she can trust the rules of life and death like she used to. Maybe. ]

We don't tell anyone where. [ she murmurs, stroking up his back, between his shoulder blades. They can hole up in the sewer for all she cares, as long as there are no loose ends behind (or above) them. ]

[ he starts to nod, having every intention of agreeing vehemently. that's all he wants, to be with jessica and only jessica and force the rest of the world to melt away. but when he picks his head up, meeting her eyes accomplishes that same end. frank tips forward, catching her lips in a hungry kiss, fingers digging into her clothes in a desperate attempt to ground the both of them somehow. ]

We could go right now. [ it's hissed against her mouth even as he leans more heavily into the kiss, and her. ] No one will find us.

[ Her fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt as his insistence threatens to overwhelm her. Her lips drag against his, cracks catching and tearing apart. Her hold on him steady, she pushes back when he presses on her, arms closing like a vice in a bid to dissuade him from easing away again. She would kiss him relentlessly if he were talking sense.

Unfortunately, ] We can't go right now. You can't.

[ She points out with a consoling kiss to the corner of his mouth and a softly swollen smile. Her forehead rests against his, her chin dipped so she can indicate with her eyes the closest obstacle(s) in departing immediately: Rocky. And the seventeen other dogs under his care. They could take one with them, maybe two, but thirty-four? That's as many as four tens. ] What about all these fleabags?

[ he turns away from her kiss to catch a full-on canine glare from rocky like he knows frank had just suggested abandoning all of them. gaining some lucidity, his gaze swivels back to jess in time to press his face back against hers, lips twitching in a mirror to her smile. ]

You got me. [ a double-entendre if he's ever heard one, especially in his own voice. he keeps handfuls of her shirt, brushing his lips against hers as he feels an overwhelming swell of admiration inflate his chest. ] But no one knows you're here now, right?

[ frank manages to pull her even closer, wishing they were in bed but not having the will to move them by a longshot. ]

[ She shakes her head teasingly, their mouths brushing again. Jess has to bite the inside of her bottom lip to contain a grin; him agreeing with her is as good as a "yes, ma'am," in that she never gets tired of it. ]

No. No one knows. [ About him. Trish doesn't remember and Jess isn't ready to tell her. The consequences could still be terrible. She's admitted that she had help in immunizing Reims to Kilgrave's influence, but not who they were or that they returned at the same time she did. She doubts Frank begrudges her for it. He understands what it means to her, to hoard the truth, and how she pays for it.

So once she figures out exactly how to lie to her sister, and the dog-sitter can find a dog-sitter, they'll run away. It could happen as realistically as tragedy befalling them in the meantime. For tonight, they know they're staying put and that if they aren't safe, they're in the safest place they've got. For tonight.

Rasped to his lips, her nails digging into his side, ] You got me, too. [ She shares his next breath, welcoming him to kiss her as deeply as they both want. ]

[ how can she get him worked up like this in seconds? it's as comforting as it is unsurprising that she told no one she was coming here. it really does add to the feeling that he's got her all to himself - and then she says as much, something that truly catches him off-guard. while it didn't take her nearly as long to start making unnecessary sound post reims, he still doesn't think of jessica jones as someone who minces words. everything she says is deliberate and usually rude, so any kindness is to be cherished and reveled in, especially since there's no chance it was said to save his feelings.

frank shifts so he's laying down with his back against the full length of the sofa. then he tugs her down on top of him with a tiny sound of satisfaction when her weight settles over him. rocky is truly displaced then, but his offended huffing goes unnoticed as frank plays back that admission over and over again, memorizing how it sounds. you got me, too. it makes him feel dangerously close to saying something even crazier than his suggestion to leave the world behind. when he kisses her again, it does the job anyway, the contact transporting him to a ratty tent in the middle of the woods no one will ever stumble upon.

hot, calloused hands push up under her shirt, mapping her low belly before resting warmly on her back, arcing his much heavier body up into hers and feeling the tight fit he noticed the very first time they came together this way. there are words at the tip of his tongue, far too many to articulate at the moment, so he tries to bring them out in the crash of their lips and the meld of their hips, quickly forgetting about speaking though there's no hesitation in the loud moan he tucks against her lips. there's something deeply satisfying about being noisy after shutting up for so long, even if for a long time after reims it was by choice. ]

Edited 2019-07-18 11:40 (UTC)

IC INBOX + OPEN POST / memes, psl, etc.

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