danny kwon (widereceiver) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2015-09-03 01:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2018 [06] june, # past / backstory, danny kwon, persephone forrester |
when we first met, we were so young.
Who: Persephone Forrester & Daniel Kwon
Where: Fox Grove High School
What: Three scenes and the evolution of their dynamic.
When: Before, during, and after the outbreak. Most recently, right after this.
It was a bake sale planted in the school hallway, raising funds for… something. Daniel didn’t actually know what. Some good and altruistic cause, probably, unless it was drumming up petty cash for the dance budget or something. All he knew was that he was starving, muscles weak and jello-like after football practice, his body crying out for energy and sugary treats. “Hang tight a sec.” He broke loose from the pack to enter the line. One of the boys followed, the cornerback trailing behind with his hands shoved in his pockets at an aimless shamble. He yawned. “I need two dollars,” Danny hissed to Jacob, elbowing him in the side. Unlike some of the other kids, the wide receiver didn’t drizzle dollar bills wherever he went, pocket money loose and fluttering and thoughtless. The cornerback obviously didn’t mind, however, digging through his pockets then handing it over. They were still absorbed in conversation, obsessively going over the plays they’d just rehearsed, when they reached the front of the line and the chipper blonde manning the cash box. When the cupcakes came into view, Jacob looked faintly perplexed, but Danny could barely bite back a laugh. -- Sepphy was manning part of the bake sale. She'd contributed, though done it in her own way. She'd had to convince one of the teachers to let her sell her cupcakes. She'd opted to adorn them with little sharks, with jaws full of dismembered limbs. Because really, what fun was a bake sale with just boring stuff? She needed to spice people's day up somehow, even if it was in what probably amounted to a stupid way no one would give a shit about anyway. Smiling brightly at everyone who came by – possibly even brighter when they gave her a 'you're weird' glance at her cupcakes. When the latest came up, she turned those big blues up at him. “Welcome to the bake sale!” she announced, like it was some grand event. She recognized the guy. Daniel Kwon. They'd never spoken, though. That wasn't super unusual, since Sepphy wasn't exactly an example of popularity. She just also didn't give a damn about that sort of thing, it never bothering her or cowing her behavior around people who were waaay up the social ladder from her. -- “What’s the cause?” he asked, but it was an absentminded question, delivered more out of rote politeness than genuine curiosity. The morbid cupcakes had made him smile—they were much better than the usual pastel flower crap that tended to abound here. It would be nice to say that as a result he saw her now, registered Persephone Forrester’s existence, and filed her away for later reference, for when they’ll run into each other under markedly different circumstances. Unfortunately, he didn’t. “I’ll take the blue one,” Danny said. Persephone was still another anonymous face in the school hallways, a blind spot in his vision, never stopping to notice the sophomore. Even now, when looking directly at her and her handiwork and reaching out to deposit two dollars in the girl’s hand, the receiver isn’t paying full attention. Part of his focus is on Jacob beside him, another on the plays they’ll need to try next practice, the homework he has to grudgingly finish to keep his father appeased, the performance statistics he has to keep up for even the chance at a scholarship. She’s cute, but as soon as she passes into and out of his vision, the memory is gone, almost as quickly as it came. -- Sepphy glanced around, then shrugged. “I dunno,” she admitted. “Something. I just like making cupcakes, and wanted to give these shark ones a roll,” she told him. “So, fill in the blank? Some bullshit that someone needs cash for, and this is free labor?” she suggested. She handed over the cupcake, and put the money in the box. “Thanks for your contribution to whatever this is for,” she told him, and just as much as he had already dismissed her, she was on to the next person in line, too. -- “Shark Week,” Jacob cut in, and Danny laughed. “Yeah. That’s the one. It’s fundraising for Sharknado 5.” But he was already looking at his friend now, peeling off the wrapper for the cupcake and taking a big shark-worthy bite out of its nose. The two seniors turned and left the line, back to their own social orbit. So, zombies were happening. It wasn’t that she was surprised - in Sepphy Land, it was a foregone certainty. It was more that it happened when she was at school, and there was less warning that she would have imagined. She swore, it was like these people had never watched a damn zombie movie. She’d been stuck in study hall when it hit the school. She heard screams in the hallway, and looked outside and saw chaos had come to Fox Grove’s door, and it was time to go to work. She sighed, reached back to twist her hair around a pen then secure it in a bun, then she headed for the doors. Before she exited them, she looked back at the people inside. She made a quick assessment. They weren’t going to be much use in the first wave, so she opted for securing them over recruiting just yet. She thought, then made her decision. “Everyone, back in the librarian’s office. Shut the door, lock it, and don’t open it for anyone, unless they have the password.” “What’s the password?” a meek girl asked, looking pretty terrified. Sepphy grinned. “Romero,” she answered, then she slammed her hand down on top of one of the tables. “Move! This isn’t a drill, people! Office! Locked door! Password only! Now, now, now!” she shouted, and they scrambled to hop to. She just hoped that they actually followed what she set forth. She waited til they were gone, and she looked around. She went to the paper cutter, and tried to yank off the handle - but it was way easier in the movies than it was right now and she didn’t have time to screw around with it. So, she guessed it would have to be something else. Of which there was nothing practical, so she guessed she’d just have to roll the dice that she’d find something better later. Her mind was already calculating. The thing was, Sepphy had had protocol plans for something like this for years. As she set foot out into the hall, people running everywhere, she spotted one stiller person, and she called out to her friend. “Sage!” she called. “You’re on safety zones! Get as many uninfected as you can squared away!” Sure, this wasn’t going to be exactly like it was in the movies. Nothing was. But she knew exactly where she was headed next, and she ran there as fast as she could, unfortunately encountering a few zombies eating some hapless students, which was gross, but not unexpected. And she was glad they were occupied, because they were too busy chowing down to grab at her. She was already thinking that if she had to guess at her physical survivability rating, it would not be a super good one. Damn her tinyness. When she burst into the boy’s locker room, who were a tiny bit oblivious to what was going on in the rest of the school, she saw half naked and some fully naked boys go diving behind lockers. And a few who stood there and leered at her tiny frame. She ignored them, climbed up onto a bench in what seemed to be the middle of the place, and used her Outdoor Voice. “Listen up, bitches! Zombies are here, they’re eating people, and I need a Zombie Takedown Squad ten minutes ago!” -- The footballers goggled up at her, none of them immediately springing into action. A few stared back from behind locker doors, shooting skeptical glances back and forth—none of the teenagers wanted to be the first to answer, each of them checking each other for initiative, waiting to see what the socially-acceptable response should be. Group consensus. “Excuse me?” one of the linebackers finally said, incredulous, laughing at this sudden intrusion by a tiny blonde chick. “You off your meds or something?” “Yeah, what the hell,” the running back chimed in, following the other boy’s lead. “Is this some dumbass prank? It ain’t that good.” A laugh was starting to spread, contagious, their grins broadening. She had expected resistance, so wasn't surprised when she got it. “Not yet,” she answered to the guy asking if she was off her meds. Most people thought she was highly medicated. She wasn't. She was just a girl who'd grown up in various cults, and that made her a little weird. Weird enough to stand up and try to take charge during a full on zombie apocalypse. Sitting on one of the benches, however, half-clothed and hair still wet, Danny Kwon was thinking. And more importantly, compared to all of his teammates, he was listening: not just to the classmate standing on the bench, but he was craning his senses for the usual background noise of the school. Normally it was impossible to hear much from here, but the blonde girl had temporarily cut through all the chatter and laughing and rough-housing of the locker room, which meant something else was filtering through: Distant screaming. The wide receiver dropped his towel, grabbed his shirt, and stood up. Cleared his throat. Danny wasn’t one for public speeches—the quarterback was the guy for that, barking out orders and calling plays, but he wasn’t here right now—and instead just gave a curt nod. “What do you need?” he said. “The equipment room’s back in the gym.” One of his teammates gave an awkward laugh, about to fall back into mockery, but then another, much louder and closer, scream cut through the room—and the sound of something slamming against the door. All of the boys jumped slightly, turning their attention towards the exit, with wide eyes. -- When she actually got support, that was more surprising, but she broke into a big, bright grin. “Good man!” she said. She glanced toward the door at the louder scream, and she heard loud sounds, gutteral ones that sounded like monsters, and more screams. Yep. The apocalypse was here. “Soldier Boy,” she said, pointing to Danny, who'd stepped up. She knew his name, if only because he was one of the stars of the school, and therefore everyone knew his name. “We need anything you can bludgeon someone with, preferably with some length on it, because up close and personal is not gonna be the way to go, by a long shot. So...hockey clubs?” She heard a snicker. “I don't know sports. You know what I mean,” she went on without missing a beat. “Golf clubs! Those too. Whatever, don't care, arm yourself with whatever, and anything meant to protect you? Not a bad plan right now,” she told him. Then she looked at the rest of the boys, and past them to the door that she saw jolt on its hinges. “Pussies, head right on back out of the goddamn way. Don’t become part of the zombie army. Anyone not looking to die without a fight? That door's gonna give. Cowboy the fuck up, and grab whatever you can to battle monsters. Cuz they're here.” -- Her energising, adrenaline-pumping pep talk made Danny break into a grin of his own, amused despite himself, despite the situation. Where the hell is this coming from? he wanted to ask, looking up at the stranger. (He wanted to say she looked familiar, but even that would be a lie. He didn’t know her name. Didn’t tend to look up out of his own self-centered orbit, obsessive about the sport as he was. It was his ticket out of here.) But Danny was, once again, the first to move: silently dragging his shirt back on over his head, snatching up the sweaty football uniform and padding that he’d already dropped into a messy pile atop his duffel bag. His fingers flew over the laces, buckling the gear back into place like modern-day armour. The looks in the locker room were more nervous now. This still had the potential to be a dumb prank, but it was hard to fake the sound of true fear and desperation in those screams. “C’mon,” he said (still not one for speeches), slamming his helmet back into place, the visor down. Danny glanced up at the pint-sized blonde, and held out a hand for her to leap back down off the bench, sermonizing no longer necessary. “We’ll lead the way.” His decision punctured whatever hesitance his team had. The rest of the boys suited up, ostensibly telling themselves that if the captain came back and ribbed them for this, they could say, plainly and honestly, Hey, Kwon fell for it first. Too bad it wasn’t actually a joke. -- Persephone was relieved that someone was stepping up. Otherwise this would have gotten messy fast. As it was it would still get messy, just less than it could have. She took the offered hand, and hopped down. "The space is gonna be tight," she said to everyone, but mostly Daniel. "We need..." she paused, calculating quick in her head as the door rattled again. "Three lines of defense, first wave, take care of what you can, anyone gets through, second wave, that's on you. Third, protect anyone not fighting." Some kid arrived with the hockey and golf equipment and started handing them out. Sepphy took a 5 iron, and stood back, her cherry print vintage style dress really not congruent with it. "Try not to brain each other--" she was just finishing up when the door burst open. -- The team instinctively fell into formation in a way they knew like the back of their hand: the offensive line in front, all the bigger and broad-shouldered students. Defensive line second, ready to hold the row against the advancing zombies. And last was the reserves, the spares, the kicker. Whatever doubts the boys had were immediately abolished as soon as that door flew open, bringing with it a wild-eyed student with pockmarked skin and open sores. It wasn’t exactly like the movies—the zombie was fresh, brand-new, but she did have an enormous piece of flesh missing from her cheek. “Jesus fucking christ!” the cornerback yelped, backpedaling only to bump into Daniel’s shoulder. The receiver shoved past him, taking his place in the offensive line, automatically positioning himself in front of the blonde girl. He hadn’t even really thought about it. Gears had turned in his head over the past sixty seconds, more mindless students were starting to pour through the doors, and—of all things, this chick alone seemed to know what she was doing. He swung the hockey stick. It collided with the zombified student, snapping her head back, and Danny bit down on his lip. He couldn’t remember this one's name, either. Fucking hell. He kept swinging. -- The fight was ugly. It was the first in a series of a shit ton of them, and she had so much else to get going – but it couldn't be done without the start of a strike team. They needed this. They needed people taking an offensive stance before the school was completely overrun, not after. More lives would be saved that way, and she already knew that it would really only be a fraction of the whole of the school. Not that they were that huge a school, but still. She automatically discounted half as casualties, but hoped that they could get a slightly better number out of that. When Danny stepped in front of her, she arched a brow at his back, not sure if he'd done that on purpose or not, but if so? Awesome. Because a strike team candidate she was not. She could calculate all this crap, she could come up with a plan that would save a lot of people, but she wasn't exactly a battle ready girl, and she never would be. She'd get torn through like tissue paper if those things got hold of her. She watched as zombies came in. And damn they were awful. More awful than any movie made them. In the movies, they weren't still dripping blood, and totally weren't the idiot that sat behind her in French class, copying her quiz answers. She wasn't immune to the true horror that was all around them – she was just prepared for it. She could curl up into a little ball and cry her little eyes out privately later. Right now, she had a school to save. She saw one fat kid zombie starting to lumber toward Danny's side, and she swung her club, managing to make contact, though she didn't have the strength behind the blow to actually crack a skull. The shock up her arms was painful. Yeah, she didn't do sports. And now she had its attention, and that was probably a bad thing. -- The sound of impact beside him made Danny swivel, a crisp little pivot on his feet as if he were dodging an oncoming tackler. He wasn’t built like the more hulking versions of his teammates; he was lean, fast, a speedy runner, meant to snatch the ball out of midair and go long, tearing down the field. “Thanks,” he said, tossing her a quick smile, a flash of teeth. The zombie’s focus was all on the blonde, but the footballer jabbed the hockey stick to knock him back—no, it, knock it back. Danny struck it off-balance, then gave another jab to press it against the lockers, another swing to stun it. He paused, but after it tried lunging at him again, the necessity sank in: another and another and another until the bone was cracked, until brain mass and blood was on the edge of his stick, until it had stopped moving. Rodrigo. That was the kid’s name. He’d borrowed a cigarette from him once. Danny’s stomach heaved, recoiled, lurched. He turned his face aside, temporarily buried in his arm, trying to avoid the tell-tale heavy feeling rising in his throat (how many parties had he felt that exact same feeling, minus the guilt?). Managed to press the nausea down, not think about it. Don’t think about it. Save it for later. Compartmentalise. He was good at that: shutting down his brain and only focusing on the job at hand, the physical act of the football game, the motion of his hands. -- “I need to get to the office, to the PA,” Sepphy said, already planning the next moves. The guys had done a great job, and she looked at them all. She first pointed to those who'd been in the third wave. “Your job is to go room to room, and if there are students hiding, get them to lock the doors and hold tight.” She pointed to the second group. “You stick tight together, and clear the halls as much as you can - go slow. You're going to fatigue if you try to get this done too fast then all of you are just fodder for them. So be smart about it. No one's Superman. Don't be a hero, just be efficient.” She glanced at all of them. “If anyone wants to have a breakdown, do it later. If you can't hack it at some point, hole up in a classroom with others. You're no use if you're a mess. We can all hold hands and cry about this later.” Keep going, keep going. Time isn't on our side, she silently told herself. Then she looked at the first wave. “I need to get to the office, so I can talk to the whole school.” Her eyes fell on Danny just before she turned to head into the hall. The word zombie was buzzing in his head, beating at his skull. Didn’t like thinking about it, didn’t like articulating it: the z-word. Surely, this was fucking insane. Like some video game, and he was going to wake up from this nightmare any minute. But it wasn’t, and he didn’t. Between all of the footballers, they had stopped the wave in its tracks and left an empty, open hallway for them to exit into. Daniel took another deep breath, still trying not to vomit, quelling the lunatic rambling scream that kept trying to shove its way through his teeth—how had this happened, how could this be happening, how was this real. He took another look at the girl next to him. “What’s your name, anyway?” “Persephone,” she answered him. “But you can call me Sepphy.” She gave him a smile. “You’re comin with me.” -- He nodded, readjusting and tightening his grip on the hockey stick (having a weapon at hand was reassuring, a comfort in the middle of this chaos). Nausea still bubbled in his stomach, but orders were good. He could do something with that. Let someone else do all the thinking and strategising and barking of instructions, and he would be her hands. “Okay,” Daniel said, and it felt like the sealing of a pact, a verbal contract as he followed her out of the room. It had been one hell of a long night. She'd been cuffed to a metal folding chair in a cold tent with blood splashed all over the insides of it. Her ear still rang very faintly from the gunshot that had gone off right next to it, and she ached all over just from being cold, hungry, thirsty, and having to sit up on that hard chair all night. She hadn't gotten a wink of sleep, and she was kinda sorta hoping that no one was freaking out about her being gone. She'd slipped Daniel's eye when he'd been occupied, off seeing a girl, she thought, though really it could have been anything, she'd just taken the opportunity when she could. She'd slipped him because she knew that he wouldn't approve of her wandering off to the Dog Park to try and educate one of their members. She'd even hit up the elementary school to get primers for the guy, though those were gone. They'd taken her stuff, and yeah. It had just been a long night. She was ready to not be on her feet, and to warm up. Freezing, lips a little blue from being in need of all sorts of things right then, she quietly got back into the school before most people were really up yet. She headed for the offices, where her room was. The main office was a spot for the leaders to meet, and some of the smaller offices there had been set aside for special purposes. She'd claimed a small counselor's office for her bedroom, even if most people didn't have a private one. She'd been talked into it by the other council members, since she was the leader. Saying she needed her rest and space and whatever else. Eventually she'd just taken it – she just also made sure that it wasn't some huge room she was claiming as her own. It was small, even when she'd rearranged a little, pushing out furniture that could be used elsewhere. She'd decorated it, with pictures. Old yearbook photographs of people who weren't alive anymore, pictures from magazines from the library, hand drawn ones. There was a whole section of scribbles from some of the toddlers around. As she entered the main office area, she didn't bother with the lights, wandering down the short, narrow hall to her room, and she knew the second she got close that she wasn't alone. - One of the office chairs had been rolled out into the hallway, stationed outside her room—for a moment making Daniel Kwon’s position as guard dog even more literal than usual. His head had been tipped back against the padded headrest, arms crossed over his chest, half-sleeping until the sound of a light footstep woke him. (His senses were frayed, tonight more than most.) The boy had a crick in his neck, now shifting to watch the tell-tale shape of Sepphy approaching her door. The chair squeaked as he moved. Her eyesight adjusted to the hallway’s gloom enough to see the footballer, though the expression on his face wasn’t clear at first. He breathed out, slowly. Danny’s customary nailbat was propped against the wall behind him. Not that it was necessary indoors, but concern had sent him scrabbling for familiar comforts, had made him slightly irrational. “Where the hell you been?” he asked, a far sharper tone than he tended to use with their leader. The boy could be stern around the shelter—severe, even—but he was rarely that way with her. -- She'd imagined that he would be an eensy bit upset, so the tone didn't surprise her. In fact, it was almost comforting. “Learning about other cultures,” she told him, without sarcasm. In her estimation, that was true. She had learned about the sort of people who occupied the Dog Park, and what the appeared to be about. What lessons they had wanted her to walk away with versus the ones she did. “When did you figure out I was gone?” she asked, curious on that score. She walked to her door, feeling him there where he'd posted himself, and she held out her hand for a set of keys. He had one, even if most of the other non-council members didn't. She did too, she just hadn't been quite dumb enough to take them with her to the Dog Park. Sure, maybe she had taken a big risk, and not taken her own safety quite enough into account, but she took the safety of the people in Fox Grove incredibly seriously. That she wouldn't fuck around with, regardless of how optimistic she was. Her set of keys was locked in her room, she needed his to get back in. -- “When you didn’t check in on the kids. I mean, it’s not like you get to do it every single night, but when one of the toddlers asked for you I went looking.” The surliness was a leftover from the fear strangling his chest, the rest a sort of wounded professional pride. It wasn’t like Daniel was a trained bodyguard, but the past two years had led to him adopting the role much better than expected, taking to it with aplomb. She rarely managed to give him the slip. Rarely wanted to, even. “I was worried sick, but didn’t wake up the council, in case you were…” His tongue knotted, trying to figure out how to tactfully phrase this, before deciding to say it as curtly as possible, in his usual businesslike crispness: “In case you were in someone else’s room. But I had a feeling.” He rose from his seat, removed the keys from the lanyard tucked into his shirt, and unlocked the door. It was then, standing closer to Sepphy in the murk, that Danny could finally catch a better glimpse of her condition. Her posture was tight and rigid, the smallest of tremors betraying how cold she was, a sallow cast to her cheeks. “What the—Sepphy, where have you been? What other cultures?” -- Sepphy was actually surprised at the end of that sentence. She'd been thinking the answer was 'in case you were dead'. But huh. Someone else's room. Right. That was totally an option, really, not that she ever had. She made sure other people could hook up, because that was human nature and they weren't going to get anywhere long term without little ones, now were they? Sepphy herself, though, she wasn't so much someone who got into anything with anyone, not that there hadn't been people who'd made it clear they'd like to. She just had other shit to do, and no one had truly caught her eye like that. Present company excluded, because every once in a while, she caught sight of him and – she didn't think about that. She didn't let herself think about that. Instead, she focused on the here and now, where he wasn't sounding super pleased. “I was at the Dog Park. Someone on the freenet needed an education, bad, I wanted to go see about just elementary level reading stuff – let's just say it wasn't my best plan ever,” she admitted. “But I'm okay,” she assured him, to combat those sharp, observant eyes of his. He'd be able to see that she kinda wasn't. She walked into the room and didn't bother with the lights, instead opting to toe her shoes off, and she flopped in a ball on the blankets that served as her bed. -- He very nearly almost interrupted her right then and there, with a spluttering echo of the what?! “The Dog Park. You went into the Dog Park, home of infamous criminals and murderers, without backup or even me.” He could have torn into her for that, berated his leader/friend/leader-friend like a disappointed and angry parent—god knows he’d scolded his younger sister for so much less—but something about Persephone’s crumpled form punctured that righteous anger, deflating it like a balloon. She’d made it back. That was what mattered. “I figured you wouldn't be on the 'pro' end of that conversation,” Sepphy said. “But I felt really strongly about it, so I went. And learned a whole bunch,” she added. She curled up in her blankets, trying to get warmer, and that was less than possible it seemed. Man, she hoped she wasn't getting sick. Without asking for permission, Danny trailed her into her room but lingered near the door. He’d forgotten the nailbat outside. “But you’re okay,” he repeated. Half-confirmation, half-question, partially skeptical. “What happened?” -- “If you're coming in, come in,” she told him, waving him inside. “You're probably gonna wanna hear this anyways,” she added, peeking out from beneath the blankets as she formed one into a hood over her head. She wrapped it around herself. She considered the question seriously. “...I'm here. They didn't hurt me so much as tried really, really hard to scare me.” If anyone knew about her policy on fear and the fact that she found it useless, it was Danny. “They were pretty pissed when it didn't work like they wanted it to.” -- The corner of his mouth twitched, something close to the beginning of a smile, the sort of amusement that he mostly managed to bite back in public in order to maintain his sombre exterior. Danny nudged the door slightly more closed (though not all the way), and entered as asked. Looking for a place to sit, his gaze drifted over the edge of her bed, but then he turned on his heel and pulled up another rolling office chair instead. Formerly belonging to one of their more particularly harassed, overworked school district employees. Now belonging to their overworked shelter leader. Danny sat, this time looking a bit less like a glowering sentinel. Concern had softened his face, curiosity had tempered it. “Can imagine how you took to the treatment. What’d they do? And any idea what it was for—just visiting where you weren’t supposed to or what?” The palms of his hands were itching. If only he’d been there. -- Sepphy noticed him consider the bed, then dismiss it, which was also partially why she never let herself dwell too long on the fact that he was just straight up attractive. In her estimation, he was real damn careful about that sort of thing, so she guessed he didn't feel that way about her, regardless. But she also saw that twitch at his mouth, and she flashed him a big grin. “They were pretty mad I just walked up. The leader guy, he fired a gun right by my head when I wasn't immediately screaming and crying at the gun in my face,” she shared. She nestled herself against the corner of the wall, and leaned back, pulling her feet up so she could hug her knees. She made sure the blanket fell around her like a cape, trying to get as much warmth out of it as she could. “Then there was this tent that was all y'know, bloody inside and I was handcuffed to a metal folding chair all night, because they did not keep up with the idea of hospitality when the zombies happened. But anyway, I talked to their leader a long time. Basically, they wanted me to take away from it all that they all have gigantic penises, that they'll like, beat people to death with, and when they're done with that, they'll shoot people in the face, or something. I don't know. But they were really big on the 'FEAR ME!' bit.” -- “That’s a mental image,” he said dryly, his expression flickering again. It was always hard to adjust his expressions completely around her: right now, Danny was wrestling between stony anger at the description of how they’d treated her, and continued amusement at how Sepphy herself had reacted. That’s my girl, was the thought on the tip of his tongue, but of course he’d couldn’t say it. She wasn’t his. And with a jolt, he realised that she was still huddled under that blanket, visibly struggling to warm up. Danny shifted thoughtfully in his seat again. “Hey, before we continue this debriefing, want me to heat up some cocoa? You look cold.” -- She thought about it, then nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I haven't eaten since...” she paused and thought about it. She hadn't expected to be gone so long. She'd left in the morning, then...yeah. “I don't know. Day before yesterday at dinner?” she suggested. “So yes. Hot chocolate, and like, an apple or something, if you're in the mood to get me things?” she asked, and she batted her eyelashes at him, just because. “Also – in a crappy tent cuffed to a chair is cold, miserable and your butt hurts after not nearly as long as you'd figure. Especially with all this rain. In case you had a burning desire to know. Been there, done that, it was lame, not worth the ticket price,” she teased. -- “One star on Yelp for Dog Park hospitality,” Danny quipped back, admirably deadpan. His lips had pursed upon hearing how little she’d eaten, but he didn’t reprimand her this time; she knew, of course. So instead he rose silently and moved over to one of the desks in the room, where he plugged in the battered old instant kettle—they were cheap, easy to come by, helped create potable water, and Fox Grove’s windmills meant electricity wasn’t quite so scarce as it could have been. He knew where Sepphy kept her little stash of food (a common teenager habit, but she tended to use it for when people came to visit her ‘office’ on official council business, rather than the stereotypical late-night snack). The boy rummaged through the desk drawer until he found a packet of instant hot cocoa and a slightly-mottled apple, still none the worse for wear, then came back over carrying a chipped cup, now steaming with hot water. The offering was small and threadbare, like most things were nowadays. “Wish we could give them a taste of their own medicine,” he said, thoughts obviously still lingering on the Houdnds. “No reason to be such a dick to a student who just came over to tutor.” Although… A followup thought occurred to him. “Did you tell anyone there that you were arriving? The kid you were meeting, didn’t they vouch for you? What was their security like?” It wasn’t a scolding anymore; now Danny was genuinely curious, wanting to know as much as she’d learned of the Park. It could be valuable intel. -- Watching him move about the room had a little smile touching her lips. It was comforting, and just nice to be treated like this after her night at the Dog Park. She didn't usually let anyone cater to her, she was capable. But right now she could stand a tiny bit of it and she appreciated every gesture. She wrapped her hands around the mug and she let the warmth seep into her fingers as she did so, listening to him as he spoke. She shook her head, though, when he spoke. “We can't. Their place is really big, with a lot of people, all who seem murder-happy. And they didn't seem super open to even, like, talking. All they wanted was for me to piss myself in fear of their swinging cocks, and throw myself at their feet in grateful relief that they didn't rape me. Though – to be fair, I don't think that all the attitude I got from Mr. Blonde Man was about me. I think other stuff was bothering him, and I was a convenient target,” she mused. “I didn't get to see pretty much anyone, they didn't want to listen and at first wouldn't even check my bag to see that I wasn't trying to wander in with a bomb or anything, just books. I hadn't thought it would be that bad a thing. But! Live and learn, right? That won't be happening again. And their security was like 'let's shoot peeps in the head! Yays!'” she said, making a little cheer gesture with one hand. -- “Admittedly, our own security’s not exactly handing out welcome baskets.” All of the adults had been expelled as quickly as possible from the school, students slamming down the jaws of self-preservation, banishing any threat to their own fledgling authority. Still, though, he was acutely aware of the fact that most of them were still teenagers, several with babies or toddlers to take care of now. The Hellhounds weren’t to be messed with. “No, we're not, but we also don't treat people like they're terrorists unless we've got a reason, and we definitely don't wave guns in people's faces and imply gang rape – before – murder consequences,” she pointed out. She sighed and rolled her eyes after a drink of the cocoa, it helping her out a little with the cold factor. He’d drawn his chair closer and pulled it up to sit by Persephone’s bedside, his hands intertwined and resting against his knees. He watched her sipping at the cocoa, slowly warming up. “Just—” Danny’s words dried up. He was never that good at this. “Just promise me that you’ll bring me next time you go somewhere off-books, alright? Shit is dangerous out there. You’re not a raider. I don’t want you to get busted up.” -- She watched him get closer, and abruptly moved, shoving her feet just under his thigh, so she could leech his heat that way. She grinned at him as she did it, almost in a 'you can't be mad at this face, right?' statement with the expression. And Persephone was, as always, 100% correct: he couldn’t complain and hardly minded. “And okay, I promise. Or, as much as I can. I mean, I can't see the future, and what if there's some crazy threat or whatever and I have to go on a secret ninja mission?” she posed, tone serious but her smile gave away the teasing. -- “Depends,” he answered, voice infused with some fake gravity, all ponderous and thoughtful. “You got any secret ninja training? Those parents of yours had more tricks up their sleeves than anyone knew?” -- “I'm just going to have to assume that I do, that it's just triggered somehow, all Manchurian Candidate style. I won't know what the trigger is, but once it happens?” she mocked throwing something at the wall. “That imaginary throwing star would totally be sticking out of some evil dude's eye. It'll be awesome. So, in case that happens, I can't be held responsible for promises made under our usual arrangements. But until then? Sure. I won't wander off without you anymore, okay?” she offered. She didn't want to make anything strained between him. She genuinely liked the guy. He was nice to have around, and not just because he helped keep her safe. That was secondary. She liked him as a person. -- “Sleeper agents. That’s pretty cool, I can deal with that. As long as you’re not programmed to wipe out your bodyguard as the first thing you do.” There was a twist of a smile on Danny’s mouth; some of his playful side always came out around Sepphy, one of the few people left who counted as one of his inner circle. It was a small list and felt like it just grew more tightly-knotted each month, as the high school kept up its isolationist strategy. But he didn’t hate the people he was trapped here with for the foreseeable future—rather liked them, actually—and that made all the difference. “But okay, deal.” Danny reached a hand across her bed, extended for a solemn handshake, a sealing of this new agreement. -- “Don't worry. I would fight bodyguard killing instincts. I'd look at you and some part of me would rebel, and I'd let you live,” she told him, reaching out to shake his hand. “It'll be great.” She paused for a moment, eyes on him, then she smiled. “Sorry I made you worry. I swear the whole being held captive thing totally didn't occur to me.” -- “Yeahhhh, it’s generally not in the game plan.” Danny’s grip on her hand was sure and strong, his pulse warm against her cool palm, though she finally seemed to be warming up now. He lingered for a moment, but then detached himself, drawing himself back to his feet and clearing his throat. “You must be exhausted,” he said. I should let you rest was the unspoken implicit followup, but Danny was already rolling the chair back into its place. He had finally relaxed over the course of their conversation, all of that anxious nervous tension seeping out of him upon the confirmation that Sepphy was okay. Or at least as okay as she could be, for tonight. |