KC (doingmything) wrote in city_limits, @ 2009-04-07 00:55:00 |
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Current mood: | listless |
Entry tags: | connor reilly, kris michaels |
Wheels Keep Turning
The gym was officially closed for renovation and Kris was hoping against hope that she would have the client base to bring it back once all the damage had been repaired. The insurance had covered it all, thankfully. She just couldn't put how disheartening it was to see your hard work destroyed with so much abandon into words, couldn't express the way she was feeling without putting her fist through something and it sucked.
She was tired and feeling every one of the hours she'd spent cleaning up the gym, but there was still more work to be done. She'd called Connor and arranged a meeting in the park, the need for open space was currently overwhelming. She needed to talk to him, tell him the God's honest truth and give him notice of her poor financial state. This gym was her living but she knew it went a long way to Connor's as well, he needed to know, it was only fair.
Kris knew the money from Toby had been more generous, but she'd spent most of it on buying the building then put the rest into the college fund for Rosa. She wasn't touching it, she wasn't about to stoop to her father's level to get her through. Not now and not ever.
It was warm out but Kris had a jacket on, she was feeling cold for some unexplainable reason. It had to be stress. She kicked up her heels and rested the soles of her boots against the edge of the bench she was sat on before she merely closed her eyes, tipping her face into the sun.
Connor had spent the night of Rhiannon's party on her couch, then most of the morning after alternating between helping clean up and feeling like his stomach was about to turn itself inside out from hunger. He'd never had the munchies before, and he'd ended up having an extra-large pizza delivered to the Slayer's address, eating half of it past the dry-mouth while drinking soda to wet his throat. Food had never tasted so good.
The Destroyer had decided to walk to the park because the day was so nice, and the soles of his tennis shoes slapped against the gray pavement as he crossed the street, waving his thanks to a cab driver when the woman allowed him to have the right of way. He shaded his eyes against the glare of the sun, listened to the squirrels rustling through the grass as he padded over to the bench where he saw Kris leaned back, taking up some space next to the brunette while thinking she looked kind of drawn.
"Mornin'." She'd sounded stressed on the phone too, and he didn't think he'd ever heard her sound stressed during their short acquaintance. He hadn't gotten details from Rhiannon about why she hadn't made an appearance the other night, and his blue stare studied her profile for a minute before he looked off across the park. A small group of birds was pecking around in the grass, their brownish-gray bodies standing out against the green blades. "How bad is it?"
Kris blinked her eyes open and hated that she'd almost fallen asleep right there and then on a park bench of all things. "Pretty bad," she admitted with a nod of her head, hands in her jacket pockets and entire posture withdrawn. "And expensive, but the insurance is covering it. Broken windows, broken doors, damaged equipment, blackened walls." Kris shrugged. "That sorta thing."
She shifted her weight and inhaled a breath, turning to finally look at Connor. "I have something I need to tell you, Connor. Something I've been putting off in the hopes that things might get better and I wouldn't need to do it, but..." She swallowed and tightened her jaw, ignoring the way it made her entire face ache. "I don't think I can afford to pay your wages right now. I can cover the four weeks notice payment but ongoing? It's looking pretty grim."
Kris looked away again and worried at a cut she'd drawn open on her lower lip from chewing on it. "I just wanted to tell you so you can start looking for another job."
He immediately flashed back on his cursory check of the newspaper over the last few days. He seldom read anything but the police log and sometimes the local movie listings, but there had been a small article about the damage to the studio. He picked at the seam of his cargo pants where the threads had faded from multiple washings, casting a sideways look at Slayer. Pulling at the problem as if it was also threads holding something together.
"Vandalism?" Because that had to be it. The neighborhood was decent enough, but in cities like this anything could happen. If someone had targeted Kris' business for some reason, it wouldn't be out of the ballpark for breaking and entering to follow suit. "Well, at least the insurance guys aren't giving you a hard time. That might make it easier."
The mention of money led him to thoughts of his own financial situation, and a crease appeared in his forehead as he considered that. He still had some savings, but if he lost his job he'd need to find something else pretty quick. "I've never been fired before." He managed a chuckle, feeling a little selfish. He knew how much this meant to Kris, what it represented. Connor's frown deepened, and he stilled his restless hands so that they stopped plucking at the fabric of his pants.
"What're you gonna do?"
Kris gave a small sound and a tight smile. "I've never really fired anyone before." She pulled her lower lip into her mouth again and worried the cut until it opened again, flooding her mouth with the taste of copper.
"Yeah, looks that way." She breathed out and finally pried her hands free of her pockets, settling them around her knees instead. "Police think it was some youths who thought they'd go on a rampage." Kris still had it in her mind to confront some of the neighbourhood, demand to know what was going on and if she was right in thinking they had something against her.
Kris' chest hurt - it ached constantly - and her stomach felt like it was full of knots. "Me? I don't know. Try to get through this bad patch and keep my business in one piece." What more could she do? As soon as the gym was up and running again she'd bust her ass trying to get new buiness into it, the same way she had in the very beginning. She'd done it once, she could do it again, even if her energy levels had drained quite substantially recently.
"I'll think of something."
"Stop that." A tiny trickle of blood had escaped from the corner of Kris' mouth, and Connor dug around in his pockets until he found a Kleenex. He clumsily smoothed it out, handed it off to her without making eye contact. To give her her privacy. According to the black watch on his wrist, it was almost eleven. He could feel the Slayer's tension like radio waves, and he rubbed the back of his neck against it as if he itched.
After a silence he blew out a breath, watched some of the birds take flight to perch on a telephone wire instead. "I'm sorry." The woman next to him was very much like Rhiannon and yet very different as well, and he could only imagine there'd be a similar reaction if this was happening to Rhiannon instead. He himself knew what it was like to have something you really cared about and wanted threatened, if not outright taken away. And he admired her on her own, her toughness and her strength. Resilience.
"Is there anything that...you need? I could..." It was still difficult to offer assistance sometimes, to reach past the crumbled remains of his personal barriers with a helping hand. Especially when he knew how pride could get that hand slapped aside. "I dunno, something."
Kris took the Kleenex with a quiet, "thanks," before she held it to the bleeding cut, trying to stem the flow. She hadn't even been aware she was chewing on it until she'd tasted the blood and Connor had told her to stop.
"It's not your fault," she said with a shake of her head. "Shit happens, just gotta dig my heels in and refuse to die." If she had the energy reserves for that, but she wasn't going to go down without a fight.
Kris turned the tissue over to catch blood with the clean edge. Did she need anything? Oh, she needed plenty, but she had never been that good at asking for those sorts of things. "Right now what I need is a couple hours of sleep, somebody to tell me that all of this is going to work out and maybe just maybe some physical reassurance, but right now? I'd settle for some company."
What? She got lonely just like everybody else, even if she hid it better than everybody else.
God, she was tired.
He had his hand halfway to her shoulder before he could think about it, rested it against the sharp bone that was hidden by muscle and flesh. Her jacket was denim, frayed at the collar. His fingers squeezed slightly, once, twice, and then he let go. Maybe Kris was a lot like him too.
"You're gonna be okay." Nodding as he said it, turning a little so he could get a look at her face. His mobile features were set in an expression of cautious sympathy, and his mouth threatened to lift at the corners. "I know how important this is to you, and that's why you can bounce back from this. Just...whoever's doing this, they can't win. They're not smart enough."
It was in the back of his mind to stand up and suggest that she punch him as hard as she could. He knew that hitting - or being hit - often helped re-settle him, assisted him in locating his balance so he could focus on what was important, or at least work through the worst of the turmoil. But he wasn't sure they were that much alike. He pushed his fingers through his hair, scuffed one shoe through the loose dirt in front of the bench.
"Have you had breakfast? Lunch? Whatever, food." He'd have to get a paper, check the classified, ask around to see who was hiring. "There's an IHOP close by, we could go get omelettes. It's early enough for us to beat the rush from downtown." Funny how calm he was about all this. But this was really Kris' crisis, not his, lost job or not. Besides, she'd said she wanted company.
Kris' gaze slid to his hand on her shoulder and she gave a strained smile, tilting her head to rest her eyes on Connor. "Here's hoping." She flexed her hands around the tops of her knees and then lifted one, scratching her fingers over the lingering cuts. She really should have worn gloves but she hadn't been thinking very clearly at the time, she'd just wanted to get the place cleaned up.
"I had something a while back," she said vaguely. "Grabbed something after I dropped Rosa off at school." It couldn't have been anything more than a bar of chocolate. "I should probably eat something. Keep my strength up, that sort of thing."
She dropped her legs and unfolded her arms, clasping the bench in her palms before she got to her feet. "How are things on your end anyhow? Hopefully better than they are on mine."
"Its...better, I think. Not great, but better." He hadn't gone into specifics with Kris about his upset earlier, had been afraid he might unravel right there if he had tried, but now he felt like he could talk about it a little without losing it. The other shoe had dropped; not much else could go wrong.
"Somebody did something stupid to me," the Destroyer said, looking at the Slayer briefly before shrugging and also getting to his feet. There was a possibility Rhiannon had already mentioned it, but if not there was no point in dragging Faith's name into it. "I hope not on purpose, although its kind of hard not to have my doubts. "I'm still working through it, I guess. Its hard not to feel kicked when I've felt exactly like this way too many times before."
The rest of the birds flew away as the two of them started to cross the grass, and he added, "Faith's out of jail. It was in the paper. Speaking of deja vu." And he was already bracing himself against that knowledge, because he didn't know what would happen now. "If I can get Jessica to start talking to me again, that'll help."
Kris fell into step beside Connor and tucked her hands into the hip pockets of her jeans, hitching her shoulders upwards to try and combat some of the tension she could feel across them. "Stupid?" She asked, looking over at Connor. "How stupid is stupid?"
She nodded at the mention of Faith being out of jail. "Well, that's something. Can't say I know her very well, but the idea of being stuck in cage is not one that sits easy with me. I think I'd go stir crazy."
Kris hooked her thumbs into the belt-loops of her jeans and knocked at a loose stone, watching it roll off to the side and disappear into the nearby grass. "Jessica?" She asked, wondering why that name rang a bell. It caused Kris to still in her movements and her brow furrowed. "I met a girl called Jessica once. I was out on patrol. We didn't hit it off, mainly because she was all about killing what I knew to be a good demon. Couldn't understand the concept apparently."
She gave Connor a sideways look. "What's your predicament got to do with her?"
Good demon.. He could feel the look, kept his shoulders where they were as opposed to letting them climb towards his ears. "We had a couple of dates," he elaborated, listening to the change clink in his pockets. "She's from the same kind of place I grew up in, no room for anything besides black and white. I'm kind of hoping it doesn't take her as long to adjust as it took me."
They reached the edge of the park at a crosswalk, and he watched the light turn from red to green before starting to walk again. "Faith...interfered." If Kris already knew the details, then she already knew. If not, he would be the last to fully explain the what and the why of it. Let the other Slayer explain herself if she could. He was so done with justifying other people's crap.
"I sent her a book. Jessica, I mean. Alice in Wonderland. Thought it was fitting, considering how she got here. She called me to thank me, I'm taking that as a good sign."
Kris was silent for a moment, wandering across the road and lifting the tread of her boot over the kerb. "With every day that passes I feel more and more out of the loop." She said it more to herself than Connor, shaking her head in an attempt at clearing her head.
"So, Slayer got involved, did something really stupid, and from the sounds of things the girl got pissed off and stopped talking to you. That about sum it up?" And here she'd been worrying about the loss of her business and potential debt. "Seems like much ado about nothing if you ask me, not that I'm saying that whatever happened wasn't craptastic, but I dunno, maybe there's something to be said for staying out of other people's business."
She turned her head as a group of teenagers wandered past, laughing about something. "Hopefully things work out for you."
"Thanks. I appreciate your saying that. And when you get past this trouble you're having, I'd like to come back and work with you again. Its important, what you're doing, both for the community and for yourself. I'd like to stay a part of it if I can."
Just before he reached the other side of the street, Connor bumped Kris' shoulder lightly with his own, offering her a very small smile of encouragement. "I'm buying lunch, by the way, so you can save your money. I figure its the least I can do, so don't try to refuse."
Kris turned her head and looked over at Connor. "I'm the one firing you, pretty sure I should be buying you lunch." Her lips twitched into what could have been smile had she allowed it to get that far. "It's in this whole unwritten employer's handbook."
She reached up and caught the band that had held her hair firmly in place and pulled it free, feeling some of the tension drain from her as the long black strands fell around her shoulders. Sometimes just letting your hair down made all the world of difference.
He decided not to debate it with her right then, but he would try to get the bill before she could snag it from the server just the same. The day was nice and he wasn't mad about anything, not even her decision to let him go for the time being. Considering the last couple of weeks, to still be on an even keel after something like that was an accomplishment. He supposed he was even proud of it.
"We're gonna be okay, the both of us." Maybe making it sound like a team effort would mean they could still work together, even if it wasn't professionally right now. Leaning was still hard for him, and he guessed that it was hard for Kris too. But if everything was baby steps, they could at least take them together. Everyone had to start somewhere.