InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Let's dance in style..."

Zoe Washburne (warrior_woman) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2012-10-25 20:16:00

Entry tags:

jesse custer, zoe washburne

Hurt to heal (Jesse)
Amazons did not stay in bed or on the couch all day and stare at an idiot box. Batmen did not let a few sniffles and sneezes keep them in. Big Damn Heroes did not keep out of the fight because they had an ouchie. This was what went through Zoe's head; she was having a very hard time allowing herself to rest. Sure, she'd done it in the past, for a very short time, but that was being shot and stabbed - this was just a bug in her head. Actually a real bug in her head would have been more pleasant, possibly. It could be removed.

With the thoughts of how very far she was falling down on the job, she pulled herself up and got dressed. Of course, she had to wait until the Cowboy God went off to find the planet called NyQuil; she wasn't sure he'd succeed, seeing as the City didn't let anyone leave...within reason. Dressed, she was out the door and into a cab; she'd accepted that the walk was probably a waste of the energy she'd need later. She left a hefty tip to make sure the driver forgot her.

She made it to the Batflat, and once she sat down for just a small rest, she soon realized just how nice the padded benches were.

A short time later Alfred had called the apartment to check on his current charge, and at first wasn't too surprised when no one picked up. He knew she wasn't feeling well, having talked to the woman about her current state of healthy earlier. He thought he'd check in with his charge's significant other. Alfred didn't seem to mind that the preacher was once more in the Batfamily; then again, had the preacher ever really left?

Imagine the good butler's surprise when he received an almost frantic and definitely angered greeting from the preacher. Zoe wasn't where Jesse had left her, and he had no idea where she was. Alfred managed to reprimand the "young" man while calming him enough to remind the preacher that he was a God. He could find the lost warrior woman with just a thought.

Remembering was just as good as action. Soon, the preacher was in the Batflat, but he didn't get a chance to marvel at it. No, he gathered up his wayward woman and took her right home, using his special talents rather than taking the more human route. He woke her long enough to give her a stern look and a heaping helping of NyQuil. Zoe wasn't sure how she was going to take a planet, but perhaps it was a liquor, a hideous liqour, they made there. It was almost as bad as Mudders' Milk.

Dosed up and still drowsy, not bothering to feel embarrassed or properly chided for her little attempt at adventure, Zoe curled back up on the couch to sleep. Unfortunately, it didn't remain peaceful and restive for long; she began to fight, and with a yell more than a scream, she sat up right, eyes wide, sweat beading on her forehead and neck.

"NO!"

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cowboy_god
2012-11-09 02:02 am UTC (link)

Jesse burst into the room from where he'd been, moving faster than he ever remembered doing, but pretty sure that he'd still moved at a human speed. He wasn't really thinking about it, though, wasn't paying attention. Zoe's shout was the only thing on his mind.

He'd been in the kitchen, cooking up some chicken noodle soup. Chicken and stars, really. It was a childhood tradition that he couldn't help but recreate for his loved one.

She'd been sleeping fairly well after her brief outing, and he wanted her to stay sleeping, but he also knew that she needed to eat something, and that food should happen every few hours no matter if she wanted it or not.

When he got into the room and saw that she'd just awakened, he wasn't quite as worried. Nobody else was in there with her, and she wasn't harmed in any way. Just still sick. Jesse imagined that the semi-liquid he'd given her had contributed to the dreams that had apparently turned bad.

He sat on the table next to her couch after hurrying to the bathroom for a cool washcloth. He gently wiped away the sweat and then rested the damp fabric on her forehead.

"You alright, darlin?"

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warrior_woman
2012-11-09 02:29 am UTC (link)

Zoe shook. It might have been extreme shivers, or it might have been an after-effect of the nightmare dropping away. She tried to focus on the man rushing at her, and it wasn't until he spoke that her head cleared enough for her to know that she was okay. Sort of.

"No." She groaned softly and slid back under the covers for a moment. "I'm sick, and I just saw you decapitated by my husband turned Reaver. Not making for fun times." She shuddered under the covers and stared off at a wall. The image wasn't going to go away anytime soon and that bothered her. Had she done something so wrong that she deserved to see her man killed by the twisted memory of her husband?

"Where were you?" She didn't think he'd been too far, seeing as he'd rushed in rather than simply appeared. He'd heard her, hadn't he?

"Did I scream like a little girl?" It was a small joke. See, she could still make jokes, sort of.

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cowboy_god
2012-11-09 02:40 am UTC (link)

"That's a hell of a nightmare." He agreed. "It's likely the NyQuil what caused it. I'm sorry 'bout that."

Jesse left the cloth where it was and reached to pull more blankets over her. He'd left them at the end of the couch just for that reason. He didn't need her shivering or her burrowing further under to know that she was cold. She was sick, so she was either way too cold or way too hot at any given moment. Either way, it meant she needed more covers.

"In the kitchen, makin you some soup." he nodded behind, "Chicken and stars. My momma used to make it for me when I wasn't feelin well. The little pasta stars made me feel better. Thought it might help you, too."

Jesse didn't feel the need to add that the stars hadn't actually done anything to help his illness, that it was all just in his head. She was a smart woman.

"Nah, not like a girl. But ya sounded scared. Thought somebody broke in here somehow without me knowin it. Got my heart poundin real good."

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warrior_woman
2012-11-09 03:44 am UTC (link)

"I don't want to take anymore." Zoe didn't hide the whine. It was just on the edges of her voice, and she tried to hide under the additional blankets. Maybe she could will this crazy illness out. At least when she was a zombie she didn't just roll over and die; actually, if she understood zombies, she had done some of that. She'd taken a few down with her though. This, this was pathetic.

"When I felt at odds with my body, Mama gave me broth. Didn't happen often. Life in space wasn't perfect; my first time planet side I didn't walk straight, and my stomach kept pitching." She smiled a little. She'd lived her early life on a ship, born and raised, and she'd listened to children older than her who suggested she walk a particular way to keep from falling off. It was silly, but she'd been little at the time.

"Chicken and stars." He was giving her the stars. Something about it brought tears to her eyes. She did miss the stars sometimes, being in the black. She liked having land beneath her feet, but the black was a part of her.

"I'm fine, just sick." Her hand snaked out of the blankets, offering to hold his for a moment, at least pat his leg. "You afraid someone's coming for me?" She knew of at least one person in the City who might. "Or you just naturally think someone might break in?"

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cowboy_god
2012-11-09 03:53 am UTC (link)

"We'll find somethin else for ya." Jesse promised. He wouldn't force anyone to repeat a nightmare that bad, and there were other sorts of medications out there that did similar things without the trippy side effects. NyQuil was just the best at it.

"Guess it's universal and across time, soup soothes the soul." He smiled and got up to go get it for her, squeezing her hand slightly before he did.

"A shout like that, darlin, I was ready fer anything. I didn't know what the fuck was goin on. Ya sounded scared and angry all at the same time. While there's faces in this place I don't want you to tangle with, I try not to live in fear of em comin round. No way to live, that. Just tryin to take care of ya, like I said I would."

He disappeared into the kitchen and returned quickly, chicken and stars in hand. He'd not missed the way her eyes looked, but he knew better than to bring it up. Especially now, when she was not feeling so hot.

"Guess it was just instinct."

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warrior_woman
2012-11-09 04:05 am UTC (link)

The warrior woman was now cocooned in blankets, and she wondered if she'd ever be free or want to be. It was deceptively comfortable, being looked after as he was doing. Only, she knew eventually she'd be damn cranky; she probably already was now and then. She wanted to be outside, helping, not inside helpless. Then again, outside didn't have cute little starry soup.

"It does something to the body too. I'm sure Simon or River could tell you." She freed her arms from the blanket cocoon, finding a way to sit up so that she could at least feed herself. "Tell me more about when you were young." There was something good and sweet and comforting in thinking of him as a young boy, one who had to grow up to a man. She liked thinking of him as human, not that she would have him any other way. She loved him.

"Heard there was some rub that helps. You could rub it on me?" She didn't know if she had gotten said rub while she was shopping for things before collapsing.

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cowboy_god
2012-11-10 03:15 am UTC (link)

"Well, it keeps the body fed while it's tryin to fight off the cold, yeah." Jesse nodded. "Can't keep fightin if you ain't got energy, no matter what it is that yer goin against."

He waited until she was able to grasp it before he let go of the soup. Jesse leaned back some, thinking about what she'd asked of him. He sighed, shaking his head.

"Most of it, ya don't wanna hear, darlin. Even on days when you feel better. I don't got a lot of the sort of stories yer lookin for right now. Didn't have much of a childhood after a certain age.

"Things were good when it was just me, mama and daddy. Learned to love John Wayne, cuss and be a good man. Growin up, I really only had one friend. Billy-bob. He was inbred and only had one eye. Wasn't cause he lost it, just born that way. One fuckin eye, right in the middle of his head. I ain't really got much happy to talk about from those days."

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warrior_woman
2012-11-11 02:53 am UTC (link)

Zoe paused as she lifted a spoonful of soup to her lips; she blinked at the description of his friend Billy Bob. Her head tilted as she stared at him, trying to put the image together. Single eye in the forehead? She'd seen that before, hadn't she?

Rather than comment, she brought the spoon to her lips and sipped the soup. She did this a few more times, her mind working through things. Finally she set the spoon down to focus on him; she was full, too.

"No more." She carefully as she could rested back in the couch and covers, leaving the bowl of soup where it was on her lap. "Full." She gave him a weak, apologetic smile. She didn't want him to think she wasn't appreciative.

"I'm sorry you didn't have a happy childhood." She covered a yawn just barely. "Mine wasn't amazing. I grew up on a ship." She smiled, knowing some people thought it was a sad life to live on a home that never settled. Others overromanticized.

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cowboy_god
2012-11-12 11:12 pm UTC (link)

"Have a couple more bites, and I'll put it away." Jesse was not-so-secretly getting a lot of enjoyment out of this. He didn't even bother to hide it.

"Some people say that our lives make us into what we are. Me not havin a good time as a kid, maybe it just helped to assure I wouldn't become like them assholes. Maybe I needed to have an overbearin grandmother who shoved the bible down my throat in order to understand that just cause yer God, don't make ya good."

He shrugged a little.

While he didn't want to give Jody any credit for the good parts of himself, that's where he'd learned to work on cars, fight, take care of himself. Jody had been sort of like an anti-role model. And T.C. ... well, nothing good had come from T.C. outside of Jesse knowing exactly what he didn't want to be.

"I think it mighta been fun to grow up on a ship. But I can't really say, can I? Cause I ain't ever been in space at all."

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warrior_woman
2012-11-13 04:59 am UTC (link)

Zoe didn't exactly pout, but it was very close. She wanted the soup to go away, yet she had a feeling that he wouldn't take "no" for an answer in this case. She sighed, squirming carefully to sit up enough to take the couple bites that were demanded of her.

One. Two. She looked up at him. She'd done as she was asked, so now maybe she could curl up and sleep for a little bit.

"You haven't? Not even when you got the power you got? I would think that you'd want to head into the Black if you've never been." She looked to the window, as if she could see space from there. She knew it was there. She knew that they were floating out in space on one hell of a base. Somehow that didn't bother her as much as it seemed to bother the others. She'd been on some very man made creations.

"You ever thought of going outside the City and looking at the stars and down on it?" She looked almost wistful as if she wouldn't mind doing just that.

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cowboy_god
2012-11-13 06:22 pm UTC (link)

Smirking, Jesse took the bowl of soup away from Zoe and set it on the table. He'd been sitting on that table a lot recently, and he was glad that she had high quality standards.

"I ain't never thought about it before." He said, honestly. "I mean, it wouldn't be so hard. Pretty sure I don't gotta actually breathe to live. I could just pop up and see what all the hubbub's about. I just ain't never been a space kind of guy, yanno? I went the cowboy route. There's a thing they used to say where I come from, you like astronauts or cowboys, the Beatles or the Stones, Elvis or Sinatra. Guess I was just a cowboy, Stones, Elvis kid."

Jesse shook his head. "I ain't ever considered leavin the City at all, honestly. Goin over to that other world is about the only time it's ever been a thing for me. I may not like the City itself, as a person, but this is my home. This is where I wanna be." He ran a gentle thumb over her cheek. "Especially now."

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warrior_woman
2012-11-14 04:08 am UTC (link)

"If I understand things, and I might not right now, but you're looking at one of your cowboy astronauts." Zoe's lips twitched a little. It amused her that she actually was and knew many cowboy astronauts. It was the world she lived in. She knew how to ride a horse and shoot a gun. She had even rustled cattle.

"We had more political divides - either you fought for freedom or you didn't." She leaned into his touch, sighing softly. Her eyes closed as she relaxed a little. It wasn't the happiest memory; she doubted anyone was fond of a war, especially one they'd lost. Of course, things were changing, or she was sure they would. The message was getting out that the Alliance wasn't all it made itself out to be. It wasn't perfect, clean, and nice.

"This is our home." She snuggled into the covers a little more. "Come lie with me, preacher man."

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cowboy_god
2012-11-15 09:35 pm UTC (link)

"Sounds to me like yer understandin things just fine." Jesse smiled. "I like the idea of cowboy astronauts."

He nodded. "We had our political divides, too. Just some of us didn't pay much attention to them. We weren't in the middle of no big war, neither, which makes a difference. The world always has fightin of some kind, but unless yer country is right in the thick of it, ya don't tend to care much."

Jesse stood, and pulled another cover over Zoe. "Yer lookin better, yanno? More like yerself. You should try to get a nap in, and I'll find you some kinda cold pill that ain't NyQuil."

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