InsaneJournal

Who: Ruby Dawson and Jack Corvus
What: Two old friends reunite.
Where: In front of the Seattle Public Library.
When: October 22, 2010, late afternoon. After this comment thread.
Warnings: Rated T for Tears! In all seriousness, probably some mild swearing on Ruby’s part.

It had been a long three days for Ruby Dawson. She had spent most of her days wandering through Seattle, looking for a safe place to sleep, stealing food, or sometimes money, when she was sure no one would look. Ruby hadn’t gone through the portal on the Detroit riverfront with a plan, just a vague hope that maybe things would better in this new world, and that she might see her friend Jack again. Ruby did not fully believe in the last hope, which is why she had been so stunned, on her first post in the Creations forum, to see a comment from one J. Corvus. She knew only one person with that strange surname, and as it turned out, it was him. Jack Corvus.

Ruby sat on a bench outside of the Seattle Public Library, watching the shadows grow longer and longer as the sun began to set. Her thoughts were on Helen and Jack, on how better things had been for the three of them two years ago, and quickly things had been destroyed for them all. Ruby hadn’t seen Jack since he was in the hospital, comatose and bandaged, and for whatever reason, he hadn’t let her see him when he was released. What did he look like now?

Jack had headed out for the library as soon as he finished talking to Ruby on the boards. He walked quickly, hands in the pockets of his admittedly worn coat, thinking.

Her felt unsure, and he could safely say that it was the first time since he had come to this world that something felt off, unsettled him in this particular way. He didn’t know what he was going to say to Ruby, what he would do if she decided to stay in his apartment, how he would keep what he was doing a secret from her. Winnie had figured it out quickly enough.

He’d just have to get better at hiding it, that was all there was to it. That didn’t mend everything, though, nowhere near. He had stayed away from Ruby because he didn’t want to see her after what had happened, didn’t want her to look at him and know how he had changed. He wasn’t ignorant to the way he had...shifted after what had happened. He hadn’t wanted her to see that. Better for him to disappear, and for the Jack she knew to be dead and buried.

But things hadn’t worked out that way. She was here now, and there was no possible way he could have seen her plea on the forums and not offered her a place to stay. Even if, when he spotted her sitting on the park bench outside the library, it sent a fresh ripple of pain through him along with recognition. The familiar. It always brought these things home.

After that, he walked a little more slowly, until he finally came up to the bench and sat down beside her. He looked different - he likely looked a mess in her eyes, scar across his nose, left eye ruptured and gone whitish-clear. His demeanor was different as well, immediately apparent. It was in his walk, and in his gaze. He was sure, but his heart was heavy, and the world was not the place it had been a year and a half ago. “Hey.”

Ruby turned to look at Jack, and took in the changes in his appearance. She knew that Jack would look different, Ruby had watched him every day at the hospital, watching as white gauze became stitches, and stitches became livid scars. Still, the scars unsettled Ruby, reminding her of the last time she had seen Jack outside of the hospital. He had been covered in blood and barely conscious, unable to see Ruby or hear her shouts to him or Helen as they were loaded onto ambulances. She didn’t think she would ever see her friends again that night.

“Jack,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Hey.” Despite her longing to see Jack again over the past year, Ruby had no idea what to say to him now. Once, she had been able to talk to Jack about practically everything, but that had been a year and a half ago, before Helen was killed and before Jack disappeared into this other world. Time and trauma had somehow created barrier between these two friends, and it would take a great deal of effort to repair it.

“Are you. I mean, what,” Ruby struggled to find something to say that was semi-normal sounding, that wasn’t an emotional outburst. I missed you so much. How could you leave? Please tell me you’re okay. “How are you, Jack?”

“I’m well,” he said. That was a lie. It was arguable whether Jack would ever be well again, whether life would ever be the same. He certainly didn’t think so. He was calm, though, steady, if more subdued than she might have remembered. He was still warm, however, and he smiled when she asked him how he was. “It’s been a long time,” he said, not sure how to launch into the thousand things they needed to talk about, the thousand things about the last year that he could never tell her. “How have you been?” He studied her face for signs of wear or care, of what had happened since he’d left. “You just came over a few days ago,” he said. There was a question in the statement - of what had made her come over now, what had pushed her into doing it. If anyone had done anything to her, if any of that man’s friends were still around back home and harassing people he had known - but there was anger, black and jagged and whipping up at the slightest provocation, as usual, as it had done since that day a year and a half ago. He pushed it down, but the concern came through.

Ruby knew that Jack was lying, but she had known that when she had asked the question. Who answered “how are you” truthfully anyways? She felt stupid for asking it, but hadn’t known what else to say.

“Yeah, three days. I’ve been...” Ruby paused. She wondered if she should tell him where exactly she had been sleeping these past few days. “I’m okay.” Anyone who looked at her could tell she was lying. There were scrapes on her knees and arms. Her hair, despite being pulled back into a ponytail, was a mess. There were faint, dark circles under her eyes, and her eyes themselves looked bloodshot. The past three days had been anything but okay.

Ruby knew that she had to tell Jack why she had left Musings for Humanity. He was one of her closest friends, despite his disappearance last year, she couldn’t not tell him. “Lola--” she stopped, and bit her lip. Ruby took a deep breath, and looked down at the pavement as she told Jack what happened. “Me and Lola had a fight, a couple days ago. She kicked me out. I didn’t know where to go. I had all my stuff with me, though, so I...crossed over.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, but it was obvious that Ruby was upset by what had caused her to leave.

He watched her for a moment, then slid an arm over her shoulder. She looked like a mess, and he felt another pang of guilt. He shouldn’t have left her behind, but there had been no other option. He’d thought it would be better for her if he left her to her on her own, away from his sickness, and he was starting to think he couldn’t have been more wrong.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and it was an apology for a whole number of things, not just an attempt at comforting her over the way Lola had treated her. “If it’s any consolation, I’m glad to see you,” he offered, with a small smile, an attempt to find a silver lining to it all, to make it better for her. Ruby was so young, still. If everything had gone well she should have graduated by now, but he could sense that it wasn’t the time to start probing into how the past year had gone for her.

“And you’re staying with me.” He narrowed one eye, playfully serious. “That isn’t a request - it’s a demand.” As far as he was concerned, there was nowhere else for her to stay. He wasn’t going to trust her to strangers. The world had become a brutal and dangerous place after he had lost Helen, and if he was going to make amends for leaving Ruby behind, he was going to make sure that she was safe in the process. People who didn’t like what he did might try to come after her if she was found to be associated with him, but he wouldn’t let them. Whatever might come now, he was going to keep the things he did from Ruby, because if she didn’t know she couldn’t be in danger, and he was going to keep her safe.

Ruby looked up at Jack. “I’m glad to see you, too,” she told him, and she meant it. Over the past year, Ruby had lost one of her best friends, watched as Jack struggled for life in a hospital, lost him to this new world, got kicked out of the apartment by Lola, and then wandered the streets of the new world’s equivalent to Seattle for a few days. Reuniting with Jack was definitely a silver lining.

As was the invitation to stay with him. Ruby rolled her eyes, and sighed with mock resignation. “If you insist,” she said. “Where do you live, anyways?”

That made his smile widen - that was a Ruby he knew, and knew well. “The Hamartia,” he said. “It isn’t pretty, but it’s a home. There’s an empty bed in the living room that you can sleep in, and you can spread out as much as you like. I tend to be in and out.”

“Ah, the Hamartia. Fancy name, grubby building. I like it already,” Ruby told him. She got up from the bench, and swung her duffel bag over her shoulder. She pushed her skateboard, which she had hidden underneath the bench, forward and popped it upwards. Possessions now in hand, Ruby looked back at Jack.

“So, uh, lead the way?” she asked.

He walked along side her, steering her with his body toward the corner. “Do you have any exciting plans now that you’re this side of the portal?” he asked, keeping his voice purposefully light. “Skateboarding competitions, maybe?” He tapped her board and smiled. Mentally, he was already trying to divide his meagre income from the music he made by what it would cost to feed and care for a teenage girl. He thought he could do it. It certainly helped that he didn’t have to eat much, himself.

Ruby glanced down at her skateboard, covered with band stickers and supported by day-glo green wheels. “Competitions,” she said, self-importantly, “Are for people with something to prove. I don’t need a contest to know I’m good.”

She turned the corner with him. “I may have gotten a job offer, though,” Ruby told Jack. “Have you heard of the Magic Store?”

“Well put,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets. “I hadn’t thought about it from that perspective. No contests, then.”

“I have, yes.” He tried to summon up what he did know about it. “Theatre...prone to accidents of an unusual and frequent nature, from what I’ve heard. An odd sort of place.” He nudged her, with a playful smile. “You’ll fit right in.”

Ruby’s last place of work was a tiny, hole-in-the-wall of a pizza place called Pizza Nut, which had smelled less of tomato sauce and more of anchovies. A wacky theater troupe was bound to be more fun than Pizza Nut, she thought.

“I think I will, too,” she agreed with Jack, smiling. Things were beginning to feel a little like the old days. Ruby walked in silence with him for a while, looking around at her new home. She never left Detroit, and before three days ago, didn’t think that she would.

“So what do you do, Jack?” Ruby asked. “Are you still in a band?”

He’d anticipated that question, and come up for an answer for it in advance. “Odds and ends,” he said, eyes ahead of them. “I work nights most of the week, lately, security work. I’ve been doing some music on my own but no, no band.” He couldn’t tell her about the music he did that really kept him afloat - it was too tied with Corbinian, with too many pieces she might use to put that particular puzzle together. He didn’t like lying to Ruby, but he couldn’t see a way around it, if she was going to be safer with him than Winnie had been. “Nothing so interesting as theatre work. The whole world might be a stage, but I’m not playing on it at the moment.” In more ways than one.

They rounded another corner and were presented with the Hamartia at the end of the street, run down and covered in graffiti. The lights in the windows were warm enough, however, with a few solitary souls out on the stoop - though no further than that.

Security work? Ruby could not imagine Jack doing security work. Not that she thought that Jack was weak, but she couldn’t picture him hurting anyone. Then again, it had been a year and half since Ruby had last seen him, and things changed.

“It didn’t sound like I would be on stage or anything,” Ruby told him, “More like a gofer or something.”

The Hamartia reminded Ruby of the apartment complex that she had left just a few days ago, albeit this apartment was a lot more grafitti covered. Still, she was grateful for the place to stay, and Jack would no doubt make a better roommate than Lola.

“The grafitti’s a nice touch,” Ruby noted. “What floor are you on?”

“I have faith that you’ll work your way up,” he said, smile returning. He crossed the street with her, walking around a bum with his head nodding against his knees on the steps. “The sixth,” he said. “The elevator’s broken, so it’s a bit of a hike to get home each night, but I expect it will be no problem at all for skateboard-honed legs.”

He held the door for her and mounted the stairs. “I’m a bit spare on groceries at the moment,” he said. “I don’t eat at the apartment much. I can give you some money to stock up on whatever you like, however. In the meantime, there is ketchup, bread, and coffee. Surely one can make a meal out of that.”

Ruby grinned at him. “I can handle it,” she assured him, “The elevator back home. At Lola’s was pretty shitty too.”

As Ruby and Jack walked up the stairs to the sixth floor, Ruby could feel the items in her duffel bag as the bag gently bumped into her side with every step. Two pairs of jeans, one skirt, four shirts, an uncounted amount of leggings, tights, and unmentionables, two old records, two bars of chocolate, recently stolen, and, more important to Ruby than anything else, a collection of photos, some in color, some black and white photobooth print-outs, and all of her, Helen, and Jack. They had been the first things that Ruby had grabbed when she packed her bag, and she could swear that she could almost feel the photo paper underneath the canvas. For a moment, Ruby wondered if she should mention the photos to Jack, but she decided not to.

“Well, I’ve never had ketchup on toast before,” she mused in mock seriousness. “But I have some food with me too, so it should be all good.” Ruby didn’t tell Jack that “food” meant stolen candy. She imagined that the anti-theft part of his personality hadn’t changed that much over the past year and a half. “Do you, uh, want any?”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure it is delicious, and I would love some.” He unlocked the front door to the apartment with the key from his pocket, holding the door open for her and letting her pass through first. “After you.”

The apartment was spare - spare was an understatement. The living room bore evidence that someone had been living there, and fairly recently - there were oil stains on the table in the corner, and the bunk bed built over it was sturdy but fresh construction, stripped of its sheets. The walls were white and clean, but the only thing they had on them were scattered pieces of music without lyrics, tacked up over one another. The door to the bedroom was closed, and the kitchen was clean but bare of clutter. There were a few books sitting out on the kitchen table, and trash in the trash can that proved someone lived there, but it was bare in a way that spoke to little care given to the home, little care thought necessary, or thought of at all. It was obvious that he didn’t spend much time here, and it was a far cry from the warmth of home back in Musings Detroit, filled with art and sculptures of Helen’s, paints and tools sitting out everywhere, and warm, good food in the kitchen. This was a world and a year away, a stark reflection of the way things had changed in Jack.

He didn’t think about it, generally, but in that moment he felt uncomfortably aware. He gestured to the bed. “You can sleep up there. I have a spare set of sheets I can fit on the mattress, I just didn’t have time before coming out to see you.”

Ruby didn’t know what she had expected to find in Jack’s new apartment. Pictures of Helen, maybe, or items from the old house. The fact that there wasn’t anything from his old life here unsettled her, although she didn’t say so. Once again, Ruby thought of the photos in her bag, and wondered if she should tell Jack about them. Ruby pushed the thought out of her mind, and walked over to the bed, putting her duffel bag down by the base of it.

He watched her reaction, even though she didn’t say anything. The pictures he had kept were in his room, securely tacked up behind the charcoal drawings he had salvaged from the house. “I know it’s a little spare,” he admitted, “But it doesn’t have to be. If you want to bring anything back to decorate with, you’re welcome to.” It made him feel a touch guilty, that the place wasn’t warmer for her, more welcoming, but interior decoration and making the apartment feel like a home were usually the last things on his mind.

“Uh, thanks. I can do the sheets if you tell me where they are.”

He smiled faintly and pointed to the linen closet. “Go crazy,” he said, watching her walk away. Inwardly, he felt a sense of relief mixed with everything else. The people he cared about, he wanted them close - he wanted to be sure they were safe. He was glad to see Ruby. He’d missed her in the year since leaving Musings, and now that she was here, he was thoroughly grateful that she was near enough to him that he could keep an eye on her.