medals | !INBOX // EUDIO.

might be

Not fucking anybody?

i'm not that good at multitasking

Edited 2016-03-31 03:44 (UTC)

Texting while lying on your back?

[And apparently he was right outside the door because it's opening.]

You're doing it now.

You don't know if I lie on my back during.

[Down goes the phone, stuffed right under her pillow.] What's up?

You don't know about the cameras I've got set up.

[It's said in an eye-rolling tone of voice - as if the electricity works well enough, as if he could be fucked with spying on someone. He can barely keep track of his own bedroom.

But, since he's in hers, it's the bed he makes a beeline for.]

Couldn't sleep. I'm fucked off.

[The quilt is pulled back just for him, which is as close to a welcoming gesture she can make without cracking a joke.]

Don't. I got a camera for my birthday. What's fucked you off?

[He crawls in as though the quilt was a door he expected to be opened in his path, crawling under and flopping back onto the adjacent pillow, staring upwards.]

Fucking Johns. I mean. Figuratively. And literally.

Did fucking a John not go to plan? Because I say, honestly, I've only ever had positive experiences.

[Freddie you entered her bed, which means it's now fine if she scoots over and invades your space. Head on his shoulder, also staring up at the ceiling. ]

[Those are the rules. Fortunately he already had an arm splayed out to the side, which fits neatly under the arch of her back, his fingers curling up against her side.]

No, the fucking part was great. It's everything else going to shit. [A breath deep enough to lift her head.] One of them's gone home. We've got a new toaster, by the way. And a microwave.

[Ah.]

Feeling put out?

I thought I said fucked off?

[He gives her a narrowed, sidelong look.]

I stopped fucking him ages ago. Mostly. It's not like I care he's gone, it's just - he'd been here as long as me.

[In turn, she lets him talk before she shifts and rolls onto her stomach to give him a proper narrow eyed, suspicious look. ]

Freddie just say you'll miss him a bit. [Whatever else that might be bothering him might come easier.]

I hope he's not dead, I suppose.

[A glance across. Will that do? If not, will the distraction of his reaching to brush a ticklish touch across her stomach work as an alternative?]

I hope he doesn't expect me to look after all his stuff. I already gave his cat to the other John.

[She's distracted for maybe a ninth of a minute, hips wriggling to knock his fingers off. She doesn't stop him, though, because even with her stomach being ticklish it's a terrible affectionate gesture that she secretly likes. She does scowl at him with her eyes while her mouth tries very hard to frown and not smile. ]

Could always sell it. Or hold onto it all and pass them off at Christmas.

[Or whatever it was they called Christmas here.

The way Freddie cares about people is odd but it's not subtle, either. Jem doesn't think to push the issue. The scowl drops in favour of a look probably best kept away from Freddie altogether or at the very least, never shown this up close. Cautious, worried, empathetic; she drapes an arm over his middle and sets her chin down on his chest. ]

You're not fucked off about his stuff.

Yeah, but selling it...

[A vague, noncommital wince of an expression completes that thought. Selling it means revisiting it, thinking about it, and more: passing off pieces of someone Freddie actually gave a shit about to people he doesn't.

The likely outcome is that he'll ignore it, leave the place abandoned until the administration clear it. No decision made on his part.

His arm flattens as she lays down, his head tilted down to look at her.]

No. [He doesn't give a shit about his stuff. And his tone remains as studiedly casual as he adds:] He really could be dead. It was that kind of world.

[But even that's not all the reason. And her talking about Christmas is enough to make him share more of it.]

It's this place. See, at home I'd have had him once and forgotten it. Here you just keep... circling back.

[It must seem odd that Jem, who is more accustomed to loss than most, cannot think of a single thing that might be useful here. The harsh truth of it is that people die. The most relevant truth here is that people leave Eudio behind eventually, and with it they leave all the people that have come to give a shit about them.

It must be harder on Freddie, because she thinks he spends so much time trying to keep people at a distance. Safe and out of the way. Convenient. Jem looks up at him with maybe her eyes looking a little bigger given that she's tired, hair not particularly tidy, and wonders if Freddie spends enough time here, might he grow out of this?

She strokes his side in what, at first, might be seen as idle, distracted movements. ] It's okay to say you liked him, too.

[Her smile is small, lips pressed together and the corners pinched. ] Don't know if you noticed, but it's just us here and I'm not gonna start a viral campaign about how Freddie has a heart after all.

Edited 2016-04-06 16:45 (UTC)

I've got a heart.

[He drums his fingers over its approximate location. Of course he has. It's reachable only by some strange and circuitous routes, rather than the usual line up of arteries, but it's there. Even he doesn't pretend that.

It's a small movement to lean forward and tip his forehead against hers.]

And he was all right, I suppose. Despite the bloody poetry. [Laying back again, it's a moment before he adds-] The other one's all right, too. So. Waiting for that to explode.

Edited 2016-04-07 04:41 (UTC)

Poetry. You were fucking a romantic.

[Is she joking? It's hard to tell in the dark, with half her grin obscured by shadows. This is seemingly the most positive part of all he's just said, because while her grin lasts, it does shrink in size as she considers all the ways he might self-sabotage himself.

Jem's an expert at it at this point, so. It's a fairly colourful list.]

- It'll explode if you expect it to, Freddie. [so, maybe ... don't. ]

He literally studied romance. At Oxford.

[Yeah, Freddie has no idea how that happened either, except that he wore a suit well and had a soft underbelly beneath it, put up admirably with demands but wouldn't be walked over.

It's a rare combination that can hold Freddie's attention even half as long as John Buchanan did.

The other John, funnily enough, has matched him. And they hadn't even been fucking.]

And you know that's not true. It's when you stop expecting it. [He has his own expertise on this front.]

Anyway, other John's a grumpy old fuck but he's over here quite a bit, when he's speaking to me. You'll probably meet him. So I'm just telling you, in advance, don't say anything.

You're very superstitious. [But he is right, that is how it tends to go. Comfort leads to heartache and all that other good stuff. ]

And what am I not meant to be saying? 'Freddie talked about you once. He tries to act cool about it, so that probably means he likes you a lot and respects your general opinions'?

[There's a snort of laughter, Freddie shifting to retrieve his phone from his where it's tucked into the waistband of his boxers.]

He doesn't have opinions. He has niggles, irritations and things he's grumpy about.

[As for what she shouldn't say. Maybe it's obvious when he brings a photo up and the man on the screen is not - like 99 percent of the people Freddie brings back to the flat - hip and lithe and on roughly the same rung of the young and beautiful ladder that he occupies.

It's a man who must be comfortably occupying his forties by now and doesn't look especially young for it (though not old for it, either. Middle age spreading the usual places. Hair starting to fade. Wearing a sweatervest.

Freddie's already gritting his teeth for the response.]

Edited 2016-04-08 04:22 (UTC)

[He's so - so average looking. In fact, he looks a little like - ] My dad. He looks a bit like my dad.

[She's. Not exactly laughing, but she almost is. It's coming, threatening to burst through the grin she directs up at him. ] Freddie, is there something you want to talk about?

[Oh god.

Oh god, the thing is, he does. Jem's shown him a picture of her dad, when she came back. He does. Nothing like Freddie's - with his mop of blond hair and ridiculous moustache that his son couldn't hope to emulate. But he looks. He looks a bit like...

Horror dawns slowly over Freddie's face.]

....Fuck off.

[The phone's snatched back.]

Jesus.

[That's it, he's rolling her off him and vanishing under the covers, crawling down the bed as if to make an escape at the opposite end.]

[The laughter is immediate and loud as she scrabbles to pin him down over the covers, all wild, flailing limbs to trap him. ]

Oh no you don't! Get up here, Freddie!

[She goes for the body flop method of flinging her entire body ontop of him to hold him down. A good plan, except where he might suffocate. ]

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