jillian vaughan (jorinda). (cheerfully) wrote in fableless, @ 2016-07-09 10:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! log/thread, cadence bone, jillian vaughan |
WHO: Jillian Vaughan & Cadence Bone.
WHEN: Saturday, July 9, 2016.
WHERE: A bus stop & coffee shop.
SUMMARY: Bingo Prompt: First meeting.
RATING: Low.
STATUS: Complete.
It’s the middle of the morning, Bone thought to himself as convincingly as he was able. You’re being paranoid. And especially so. Still, he didn’t dare to put music on, though he was wearing his headphones. Maybe he shouldn’t have left so early; he’d arrive a little past opening, but the farmers’ market would be happening well into the afternoon. And it had seemed like a good idea -- he’d spent most of his time indoors lately -- and despite his occasional musings, he knew that was no life to live. So he got up. And he got out. But he took the pepper spray that his parents had given him three days after he was rescued, which he hadn’t once touched since then. Those self-defense classes he’d been forced into in high school ensured that he knew how to use it, but just like all the martial arts and the bit about jamming your keys into someone’s eye, he preferred not to think about it. And he did not think about it, when, lost in his thoughts, he didn’t hear the approach of someone behind him, and a soft touch to his arm sent him flying for the device and unleashing it right into the unsuspecting person’s face… … only to be instantly horrified once he comprehended who it actually was. “I -- I am so sorry,” he said, still stunned. Jillian didn’t go to the farmers’ market often. During the school year she was so busy with classes, homework, and work that she didn’t have the time. Now that it was summer, though, and all she really had to worry about was work, she decided to go. Devi’s recent posts about the new menu items at Sprouts had piqued her interest, and she sort of wanted to try one of the sandwiches that the stall had to offer, as well as the Linda Blair smoothie. The only problem was that Jillian never remembered which bus she needed to take in order to get there. As she neared the bus stop, she saw someone just ahead of her; someone who could hopefully help her out. She opened her mouth, about ready to call out to him, when she saw that he had headphones on and likely wouldn’t hear her. Quickening her walk, she caught up to him in a few seconds and reached a hand out to touch his arm and get his attention. What she got instead was a face full of pepper spray. “Agh!” she shrieked in both surprise and pain, quickly closing her eyes and raising her hands to block any more of the mist that might be headed in her direction. She began coughing as the spray filled her lungs. “Ow, ow, ow…” she chanted over and over between coughs, now flapping her hands wildly in front of her face, as if that would make the burning stop. She could hear the guy apologizing, but right now all she could focus on was the fact that her eyeballs felt like they were on fire and she couldn’t breathe very well. What was she supposed to do? She knew that when you ate spicy foods, milk helped with the burn. Did that also work with pepper spray? She wasn’t sure, and it didn’t matter anyway. She didn’t have any milk. What she did have was a bottle of water in her purse, which she blindly fumbled around for and retrieved. “Can you? Fuuuuu —” She handed the bottle to the guy to open, unable to see much of anything through the tears streaming out of her eyes. She was trying desperately not to swear. “—I can’t believe I, I’m so so— yes, of course,” Bone shut up immediately, and when he saw the bottle of water, his med school training suddenly kicked back in. It was almost a relief to have something take over so he could pretend he hadn’t been the one to just pepper spray an innocent citizen. “Blink as much as you can,” he instructed her, and uncapped the bottle. Quickly but carefully, he poured it over her face, focusing on her eyes, wincing when the water dripped down onto her clothes; as if he needed to ruin this poor girl’s day any further. “Don’t touch your face… it’d be quicker if we had soap.” Bone glanced around. “The coffee shop behind the bus stop’s open,” he said, hesitantly, and sort of took a half-step toward it. He had clearly done enough to her today and didn’t want to hang around if she was rightfully mad and wanted to take care of it herself, but he also was hardly about to leave her when she was still in pain, but though he was starting to be able to place her face he certainly didn’t know her well enough to lead her into the coffee shop bathroom as she probably couldn’t see well enough yet, not to mention that a touch out of nowhere was what had sort of started all of this… his mind whirred, what was he supposed to do?! “Come on,” he said in a snap decision. “I… I feel really bad, and I’m a med student, if you’ll let me try and help fix this.” Now that some of the pepper spray had been flushed out of her eyes and they weren’t hurting quite as much, Jillian began to calm down. Still blinking as per his instructions, she nodded and trailed behind him in the direction of the coffee shop. “Okay.” She certainly wasn’t about to say no to help, especially since he was a med student. She supposed that was one bright spot in this situation. Once she had moved away from the initial spray zone into clearer air, her coughing began to subside some as well. She wondered what the coffee shop customers must have thought happened to her as she stepped into the establishment. She probably looked as though she’d been crying her eyes out. Which, she kind of had. Keeping her head down to avoid drawing as much attention to her as she possibly could, Jillian followed the guy to the bathroom, not even caring at the moment how that must have looked to anyone watching. The coffee shop employees and customers looked up at their entrance, but Bone avoided their gaze. There was enough to worry about without thinking about being stared at right now. Thankfully, the single bathroom was gender neutral, meaning one less decision for him to make. Bone picked up the bar of fancy hand soap and pressed it into her hand. “Avoid your eyes, but wash everywhere else… that I got,” he said awkwardly. “Keep blinking.” He knew her — he’d known immediately that he knew her, if only vaguely — Eddie’s friend, he believed. Now was the time to test out if he knew her name. Hopefully he got it right, because otherwise would just be the cherry on top of this whole encounter. “... Jillian, right?” he said, hesitantly. Taking a second to pull an elastic tie off her wrist and secure her hair behind her, Jillian then lathered up the bar under the faucet. Once she had a decent amount of suds worked up, she began rubbing them all over her face, careful to avoid her eyes. She had just splashed some water onto her face when she heard the guy say her name. She stilled and looked up from the sink, water dripping down her face. Even through the blinking and runny eye makeup, her eyes had finally cleared enough for her to get a good look at him, and she suddenly realized that she knew him too. Her mouth slightly agape, she nodded. “Yeah. And you’re — Bone?” Bone. Of all the arms at all the bus stops in all of Woodsbridge, she’d had to grab his. No wonder he’d reacted the way he had, and she didn’t blame him one bit. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry.” Jillian grabbed a few paper towels out of the dispenser and began dabbing at her face. “I must have scared — I mean — I didn’t know or I never would have—” She pressed her lips together to stop herself from babbling. “I’m really sorry,” she apologized. “It’s nine AM on a Saturday morning in a perfectly safe part of town, so I’m pretty sure the blame is all on me,” Bone replied, dryly. He shoved his hands in his pockets for lack of anything better to do with them. At least she didn’t seem angry? “Seriously, it’s… it’s not really an excuse. My parents just gave me the spray, I don’t even know why I brought it with me. Um, are you doing okay? Your eyes?” “Um — yeah. Yeah!” Jillian nodded, not wanting Bone to feel any worse than he already did. “They’re not really burning anymore.” Which was true; it was now more like a slight irritation. “I’ll be oka — ew.” She had just turned toward the mirror and caught sight of herself. She looked like mess, and before she could stop herself she let out a short laugh. “Oh, wow.” Using a damp paper towel, she tried to clean herself up as best she could. “You know, how about we say it’s nobody’s fault and just call it even?” she suggested as she mopped up the last of her makeup mess. “Still sounds a little unfair on your part, but alright,” he said, and smiled. But maybe in his mind he was coming up with some plan to buy her coffee or something, at least to make him feel better. Then he remembered: this all had happened at the bus stop. “Where were you going, by the way?” he asked, hesitantly. “I… I hope I didn’t ruin your plans for the day as well, or make you late anywhere.” Jillian shook her head as she tossed the paper towels into the trashcan. “No, don’t worry, I was just going to the farmers’ market,” she replied. “But I couldn’t remember which bus I needed to take to get there, and so I was going to ask — well, you.” She smiled at Bone, hoping to reassure him that she wasn’t upset. “I didn’t make you late anywhere, did I?” she asked, suddenly looking just a tad worried. “No,” he shook his head, a little bit disbelieving. “I was actually on my way there, myself. Did you still want to go?” This had the potential to be really awkward — but at the same time, from what little he knew about Jillian, and from the resounding recommendation that came with being Eddie’s best friend, he sort of felt like it could also be okay. “Yeah,” she nodded, then laughed lightly. “How funny! That we were both headed there.” Jillian pulled open the door to the restroom and found herself face-to-face with an older woman. “Oh! Excuse me,” she said as she slipped past her, trying not to laugh at the look on the woman’s face. It had gone from neutral to highly disapproving in no time flat as she looked from Jillian to Bone who were both exiting the restroom at the same time. Bone slid by her as quickly as he could, keeping his face expressionless as he could as he merely nodded greetings at the stranger. “I really should write down which bus it is so I remember it next time,” Jillian added, trying to carry on the conversation as normal. “Yeah,” Bone replied, resisting turning around to see if the woman was still staring. “Well, assuming you don’t want to keep away from me and my trigger-prone fingers, I may as well show you the route today. It’s six stops from here.” Six stops? Yeah, Jillian would definitely need to write this down. “I’d really appreciate it if you could,” she smiled up at Bone, reaching into her purse for a pen and paper. She’d probably make a note of it on her phone too, but really, the more places she had it written down, the better. “And hey, this will be a funny story we can tell people, right?” It was a thought he immediately felt guilty for, but Bone couldn’t help it: he was almost relieved that if he had to pepper spray somebody, it would be someone like Jillian who was being really damn cool about it. He smiled back at her. “Yeah. Yeah, it definitely will be.” |