No one said healing was easy
who ; manipula8rix and chttrbox_recon
what ; Sleep Therapy 101 and Letting It All Out
where ; Vriska's place
when ; Nowish
warning(s) ; PTSD, trolling
( One More Time )
what ; Sleep Therapy 101 and Letting It All Out
where ; Vriska's place
when ; Nowish
warning(s) ; PTSD, trolling
( One More Time )
She was annoyed at him, of course. Really annoyed. If there was one thing Vriska hated, it was being ignored - and she was pretty sure that the negligible contact she'd had with Jun since the Zone Seven Incident qualified for that. Then again, it seemed like he'd been avoiding everybody. And it was Jun. He'd been the first person to actually be nice to her on the station, and he'd helped with her sleeping problems before she got her recuperacoon...
Bluh. With an overly-exaggerated sigh, she began typing her reply.
No, Jun. In your a8sence I have completely forgotten how to do my magical mindfuck 8ullshit. Sorry. ::::(
That was sarcasm! I was 8eing sarcastic. Of course I can still do it, you dope!!!!!!!!
She hesitated for a second before continuing. That Emile guy had asked her to keep an eye on him, right? And it wasn't like John would mind, seeing as he was the nicest person in the history of paradox space.
And also asleep.
Why don't you come over and say hi so I can put you under in person? ::::D
I mean you haven't seen me in foreeeeeeeever. So you must 8e going through some pretty 8ad Serket-withdrawal right now!
She attached her respiteblock coordinates before sending the message and flopping back onto the couch. Man. This friendship bullshit was so complicated.
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He couldn't help but smile to himself at that. He had missed her, he realized, and wondered why he hadn't thought of contacting her earlier when this whole thing blew up.
Oh wait, that was right. It was because he couldn't think straight. He scratched a hand over stubble as he made his way to the coordinates, eager at the chance to actually sleep.
When he arrives and knocks on her door, it should be obvious that this AWOL place wasn't really a barrel of laughs. He's been skimping on the personal hygiene front, shoulders hunchned, and his face is dark and drawn.
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When she opened the door, Vriska had to forcibly resist the urge to take an immediate step back. Wow, he looked... different. While she wasn't exactly an expert on human biology, to Vriska's eyes he looked ill. Why hadn't his dumb spacedouche moirail team dragged his nook back home already?
"Hi. You look like shit." She wrinkled her sniffnodes briefly before offering him a toothy grin. "Man. You are going to need the hugest dose of sleep delivered right to your thinkpan! C'mon. I pulled the bed-thing out of my room for you, I mean it's not like I ever use it..."
She backed away from the door and began walking towards the living room, hovering a foot off the floor to be closer to Jun's height. He had no right being so tall, dammit. None.
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Jun can't help but heft an amazingly large sigh at that. Sleep. Real undisturbed sleep. "Thanks, Vrisk. I ... can't really remember the last time I got any sort of decent night's rest. This past week has been hell."
He's watching her curiously, though. It'd been a while since he last saw her and never quite remembered her hovering before.
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Showing off can come later, duh.
"Hell? Your moirails said you weren't in trouble." There's more than a hint of accusation in her tone. "That you were taking a break at some Awol place. Bluh, whatever!" She points at at the bed. "Sleep first, questions later. Right? I guess?"
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"Moirails?" His stomach drops at that, although he couldn't really say he was surprised. He just hadn't spared any time to think about it, beyond that quick conversation with Thom earlier. He starts to reply, thinking he'd better explain just what 'AWOL' meant, but no, sleep was more important right now.
He wasn't sure he could handle much else without it.
"Yeah, you're right. Sleep first." He settles his bulk on the bed and goes about knocking his shoes off, sounding incredibly worn. "I owe you one, Vrisk.
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She lightly touches her fingers to the sides of her head, waiting until Jun seems settled before proceeding any further. "Ooooooookay, then! So. Uh. See you when you wake up or. Whatever."
With minimal effort, she pushes her way inside Jun's mind - it's a lot more sluggish and fragile-feeling than last time, and she can't help but wonder exactly how long he's been awake. Still - she's here to fix that, right?
(N8ptime!)
That done, she hops onto the couch to wait for him to wake up again. Is it time to kill a few hours by griefing losers on the MMO? Why, yes. Of course it is!
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He'll be out fifteen hours or so if she lets him.
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If it wasn't for the thunderous nature of his snoring, she'd be worried that she'd killed him.
She lets him have a few more minutes of rest while she cleans the last traces of sopor slime from her hair, then scuttles back into the living room primed and ready for some hardcore meddling. Or bitching. Or perhaps both. Deciding that the volume of his snores means he could probably sleep through any attempts to screech him into waking up, Vriska worms her way inside his mind and delivers the mental equivalent of a firm, insistent poke.
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"Man that was ... nice." He yawns, stretching extensively, then relaxes to scratch at stubble. "So, what's up?"
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Vriska hops onto the couch, arranging herself in a graceless tangle of spindly limbs. "Because your boring boss and that... Emily guy told me you were okay and they oooooooobviously lied. Is it a conspiracy? Are they in cahoots against you? I knew you had to have been gone so long for a good reason! I mean, it's been forever. Jegus."
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"They probably just didn't want you to worry." He gives a little shrug, but that doesn't really answer the meat of the question. She'd said earlier they'd called him AWOL. He'd spent so much time trying not to think about base or anything related to it, that the idea that he was, in fact, AWOL, hadn't ever entered his head. Hearing it now, when he was finally coherent for a moment, left him with a sour taste in his mouth. He'd just run out on Noble.
But then, he hadn't been able to deal with it at the moment. He wasn't sure how well he could deal with it now, but the separation from it and the situation was enough to ground him a little.
"You probably don't know what AWOL means, do you? It's not ... it's not a place. It stands for 'Away Without Leave'." He pauses a moment, watching her, did she know what that even meant? How Does Civvie? "It means I ran away."
He lets out a sigh and drops his head, pressing a hand to the back of his neck and working at the tension there. He wasn't sure how much he should tell her, but he knew how much he wanted to tell her ... or someone. Anyone.
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"You absconded from your military duty stuff? Oh my god."
It wasn't an entirely unfamiliar concept. All trolls were expected to join the Alternian Fleet in some capacity when they reached adulthood - those who didn't go on to act in terrible movies, anyway - and whispers of people who tried to desert occasionally got back to the kids on Alternia.
Tried being the operative word. None survived the attempt: how could you hope to fight an entire army, or outrun the scouts, or escape the notice of Her Imperial Condescension's powerful psychics? In Vriska's mind, what Jun had just confessed to was pretty much attempted suicide.
"Right. Okay. That's... Okay." She smiles brightly, eager to show how completely cool and okay the situation is. "If they try to thresh you for it, I'll thresh them. No sweat! I mean, I bet you had a reeeeeeeeally good reason for absconding. Or... or aywolling. That thing."
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"Remember a while ago there was that big rock that was making everyone crazy? Well, it .. it got to one of my teammates and, well." He had to stop again, taking a large breath. He knew it wasn't Kat's fault, he knew it, but dammit everything was there the image in his head, the cat eyes, stepping out of the transporter and knowing something was off and trying so hard to just deal with it. He couldn't help the animosity he felt towards her, and he hated it. "She killed me."
He dropped his head, shoulders sagging.
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She falls quiet for a moment, fingers tracing the scar on her palm that she got in her fight with Davesprite. Touchy subject, especially considering what had happened between the two of them while all the craziness was going down. It only now occurs to her that Jun obviously has no idea what happened to her back then - if he'd been murdered, he probably wouldn't want to go back through the network archives watching everyone else going crazy or getting killed.
Stupid stupid dumb.
Ordinarily her first impulse would be to make whoever hurt him pay, but the situation hits a little too close to home for her to feel comfortable with that. Vriska had felt horrible about killing Davesprite, after all, and they weren't even friends back then. And she remembers that rush of genuine relief after she'd finally gathered up the shameglobes to apologise...
"So... Did she say sorry? She feels bad, right?"
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Jun knew now they were getting worried about him, though, thanks to Vriska. He was probably going to have to start thinking about going back eventually. At this point, however, it still wasn't the most pleasant of thoughts.
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