Minus One, Plus One
Characters: Edan and Mojo Setting: the courtyard, late
Edan made up an excuse to get away from Matt. It was a pathetic one about leaving something in her room, but it got her out of his room and back to hers. It was better, put back the way it had been before, even her candles back where they belonged, and that was almost as unsettling as the rest. Nothing was falling into ‘normal’ right now, emotions waging against each other. She liked Matt. She did. When he kissed her she could think of nothing but that. It was fantastic. And then there was his hand on her neck, that worry that he could hurt her before she even had a chance to get anywhere with it.
She wandered through her room before picking up the trash can and changing into jeans. She locked the door to her room behind her, taking the trash can out to the courtyard. She considered most of it before setting it in the middle of scorched earth from the book fire. Then it was into the tool shed, looking around for anything useful. There were a few pieces of wood, probably for repairs or something, but she decided it wasn’t worth much. She was going to leave when she found the gas can. That was perfect. Grabbing that too she dumped it all into the trash can pouring some of the gas over it. Not enough to make a giant fireball, but enough to get things started.
The book of matches was new, another one she’d grabbed. She started one, then lit the others and tossed it towards the trash can, watching the blaze shooting up towards the sky. It was contained, nothing out of control, which she was good at, but it helped. More than anything else she could have done just then, it helped.
She had a knack for timing, that was for sure, because after Mojo had gotten Evan’s message? She’d tried to get ready quick, tugging on her shoes and tying back her hair, pocketing her spike and lugging her book with her. If there was trouble, something heavy and something sharp seemed like a good combination to work with.
And as it happened, those steps were just long enough for Mojo to be heading down the walkway from her door, spotting a dark silhouette and a sudden fireball that steadied quickly into an upright burn. “Well shit” she muttered, thinking that this must’ve been the arsonist from the other day. But was it... “Edan?” Mojo called over, one hand close to the electrical probe in her pocket as she watched for a reaction.
Edan was watching the flames, the ice pick in her hand while she thought about it, letting it soothe her soul, her ache of frustration and confusion. She wasn’t expecting to hear her name and looked up, expecting to see Matt, but it wasn’t him. “Yeah...”
“Hey,” Mojo called, raising the hand that had been near her own spike in a small wave as she took the first few steps past the walkways and into the courtyard. “I’m Mojo, I, uh... what’re you doing?” she asked plainly, getting a better look at Edan in the fire light as she got closer. “Because I could totally make a joke about hot dogs or marshmallows or something? But I’m kinda thinking more that this isn’t a good time for jokes. Which I never do, so you know I’m serious.”
“Mojo...” Edan repeated then laughed, something dark and not really full of humor. “God, Evan really is full of shit isn’t he?” She didn’t care that she’d used his real name, not the last name he wanted to go by. “I started a fire would be the obvious answer. Would have rather taken down the shed, but someone’s using that and whoever gets voted as maintenance tomorrow might hate me if I did that.” So she was making do with her ice pick and the trashcan fire.
There was a spike of ire at Edan’s response, something Mojo usually felt when she wasn’t the one flipping shit, and she knew better than to give into it. “I guess he is, if you mean he’s a decent guy who knows better than to just assume everything’ll be okay when someone’s in a bad spot, yeah. But then it sounded like you might’ve said ‘full of shit’, and that’s totally different,” Mojo quipped as she moved closer at an easy, steady stroll.
“And okay, that’s the obvious answer, and since I’m thinking I might get tagged as cleanup around here? I’m also grateful you didn’t burn down the tool shed. That’d be a bitch’s bastard to clean up,” she went on, looking between the fire and Edan. “Why, though? Like... fire’s destructive, and you’ve got it contained. You working on some grand metaphor for control here, like it survives because you choose to feed it stuff to burn?” Mojo had to grin crookedly in the fire light, holding up her free hand over the trash can and feeling the heat flare up. “I’ve been rereading some of the Beat guys lately, so maybe I’m just looking for a grand metaphor,” she admitted.
“Don’t let him hear you calling him a decent guy,” Edan countered. “He hates that.” Because he was. He was doing this for her, sending out his friend, or whatever Mojo was to him, just to take care of her. “He just needs to stop saying he doesn’t care because he’s doing a shitty job of showing it.” She bit at her lip as Mojo got closer, not sure what to make of the line of her in the firelight. Maybe that was the part that Evan liked. And if it was, Edan hated herself for feeling slightly jealous.
“Hardly. I’m not one for metaphors. More symbolism.” She shook her head. “I needed it. needed to be near it, see it. And I never burn something...in use. And I’ve always tried to keep it contained. I just like the way it feels. It makes sense when everything else doesn’t.”
Mojo kept her hand out, drifting it back and forth over the can, letting her fingers dip in towards the heat a bit. The jump in intensity was sharp and sudden, close to threats of burns, and it hurt enough to send a contrasting shiver up her spine as she pulled her hand back. “Luckily for me, I wasn’t planning on spending my time here according to Asher’s likes and dislikes,” Mojo said first, smirking as she blew on her fingertips gently, “But I know what you mean. Dude’s got a permanent down-trip on himself. I’m guessing six years and change in lockup can do that.”
She shrugged at the observation though, seeming like she wasn’t intent on dwelling on Evan. Not why he’d asked her to find Edan, why she said yes, any of it. “What doesn’t make sense right now?” Mojo asked somewhat bluntly, just pushing ahead with the questions to a woman she scarcely knew. “Like, I know this place doesn’t still. Not to me, anyway. But there’s aspects of it that do, at least enough that I know it’s not going to vanish tomorrow. And I know I’m being a nosy bitch, but something pretty severe’s up if you’re doing this. I don’t think we need BFF tattoos for someone to want to try to help, do we? Because I’ve totally got safety pins and ink, we can do this properly prison-style.”
“I’m not sure it’s all the prison time, but maybe that’s part of it. I don’t think he’s ever thought much of himself,” Edan said. She looked over at Mojo and shook her head. “Severe is a burning down a building because they recruited your twin brother to his death. This I used to do once every couple of months at the local junkyard.” She shrugged a little. She wasn’t sure she wanted to explain, but she also had a hunch that Mojo wouldn’t let down.
“Trying to figure people out. Figure out Matt, figure out Evan. Figure out where I fit into things.”
There was a lot to pick apart in there, fragments of meaning that Edan slid together to leave Mojo wondering and curious, and if she’d been leery of coming out here? She was intrigued now, wanting to sort it all out. “What was your brother’s name?” she asked first, even if she already knew it. No one wanted to find out their friends talked to strangers about details that were that personal, and if you asked them directly? Sometimes they told you more than just the answer you asked for.
“And it’s a shallow-ass gesture to make, but I think I know the feeling? Wanting to figure it out, all of it. The people I know, myself, what’s happening around me... Kerouac said that he had nothing to offer anyone except his own confusion,” Mojo offered, one hand tightening on her book a bit. “Sounds like you’ve got a lot of it right now. Like... two dudes, for starters,” she added with a more reassuringly joking grin.
Edan rolled her eyes a little more at herself. “His name was Evan. Funny huh?” But they weren’t the same person. The Evan here had moments though, like this one, sending someone to help her, that reminded her of her twin. “I don’t have two dudes. Or...well maybe I do. I have one who can’t touch me no matter how badly he wants to and one who won’t despite seeming like he might want to.” She let out a breath, watching the flames. “That’d be easy if that was it really. It’s like my head is spinning and this? This is the only thing that makes sense.”
It didn’t seem like Edan was a total pyromaniac, though Mojo wasn’t a shrink who could decisively say so, either. But from what she was saying, with two references now to how the fire made sense? It sounded like an outlet, like a catalyst for releasing stress in a place where there was plenty of it, and that made sense. “What started it spinning? Matt?” Mojo asked, thinking that for all of Edan’s comments on Asher, there’d been nothing about the other guy. And she was guessing he was the one that had stirred up the trouble to begin with. “I haven’t even met him yet, what’s he like?”
Edan shook her head. “Probably Asher actually,” she said. “Not really what did it, but he’s confusing. We’re...confusing.” She looked over at Mojo and crossed her arms over her chest, pick still in one hand. “He’s quiet. Doesn’t talk much when he doesn’t know you. Doesn’t like to be touched. Terrified of it actually. But he’s...observant, nice. Polite, even sweet. He tries to do the best he can do even when he knows that he can’t do much.” She bit her lip, watching the flames dance in the trash can.
“Sounds like a fun one,” Mojo agreed with a soft chuckle. “Guys like that, I always thought they had a shit-ton going on in their heads, and when you could get close enough? It was usually a shame they didn’t let it out more.” Of course, this guy apparently had a capacity for hitting women behind his quiet exterior, and that was another story. “Is he confusing, too? And what’s so confusing about Evan? I mean, I’ve kinda had a lot of hook-ups, and after a certain point there’s a lot less confusion. It’s just... just people being people. Maybe you just haven’t met someone like either of them yet.”
“Because under it he can be angry. Really angry. It’s why he’s here. He doesn’t wear it on his sleeve like Evan does, but it’s there, and it’s...” She couldn’t finish the statement. “Evan’s confusing because I can’t figure out what he wants and he insists that I have an angle.” She looked over at Mojo. “Maybe that’s it.” She didn’t quite feel that way, but she didn’t want to fight about it.
Terrifying, Mojo finished for her, silently. She’d been told as much; some aspect of Matt was terrifying to Edan. “I think it’s worth worrying over and being confused when it’s something like that, the anger you know is there but don’t get to see,” she confirmed. “It begs the question of what else is buried away, repressed and just waiting for a bad moment to show itself, you know?” It was a personal motivation for Mojo’s unswerving dedication to speaking her mind, too. “And okay, with Evan? Do you know what you want? Don’t try to figure out his end of things if you don’t know yours, because if you don’t, that’s going to come off like you having some unspoken goal. Like an angle,” she advised earnestly, eventually just settling down in the dirt next to the trashcan bonfire.
Edan pushed at the trashcan with her toe, watching the sparks fly, obviously very aware of what she was doing. “I don’t think he’d hurt me, but today...more than once I realized he could. Easily.” And then he’d kissed her instead and she’d gotten caught up in that. “And then...then he surprises me and it’s okay again.” She pushed at an unburned piece of wood, knocking it more into the flames, the light catching the burn scars on her arm.
“I don’t know what I want with Evan. I know I like being around him despite the fact that he can’t seem to figure out if he wants to be around me or not.” She was quiet for a moment. “It gets harder when I factor Matt into things. Or the fact that things I’d be okay with with Evan, Evan thinks make me insane.” Edan kept her eyes on the fire, obviously taking it in, letting it fill her. “And there’s a crazy woman after me.”
Edan really had a talent for throwing a lot at Mojo at once. The more mundane bits (as much as any were) definitely begged for something snappy from Mojo as she watched the other woman, but when held against fears of Matt and the idea of a crazy woman stalking her? It just seemed cheap. “I can’t speak for Evan, or I could but I’m not going to at least. But for you, you need to ask yourself if you’d just ‘be okay’ with it, or if it’s something you want,” Mojo advised intently. “Do you look at him and just get, like, a craving to know what his mouth tastes like? If you do, why? None of us have known each other that long, so anything more than him looking totally fuckable needs a justification to come off as not-crazy.”
She was relaxing as she sat there, feeling less awkward despite them being in the middle of the courtyard. Really, it wasn’t that different from camping out. “And with Matt... if he worries you and surprises you, you’ve got to wonder if there’s going to be a day when those things happen at the same time. Gotta ask if it’s worth the risk in exchange for however you feel around him. And the crazy lady?” Mojo said at last, holding up both hands in mock-surrender and laughing. “I’ve got shit for that. I talk a good game, but that one’s just out of my league.”
“It’s hard not to want him,” Edan said before she could stop herself, wincing at it. “Though he does look the part doesn’t he? Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s him seeming to give a damn.” She bit at her lip and thought about Evan, getting nowhere. “I do worry about that. When it’s going to be too much. Or when is he going to snap on me.” She shook her head. “I don’t really expect anyone to help with her. She’s insane.”
“Well, someone has to do something,” Mojo insisted. “If she’s genuinely insane, she’s going to hurt one of us sooner or later, and if we’re supposedly getting jobs or some bullshit? Talk to whoever gets made into the cops. They can’t just do nothing. Same thing with Matt, Edan. Seriously.” She didn’t think she’d have to make this point, but it sounded like otherwise Edan would let both problems run their courses, and neither would end well. “You buy Evan being a good enough guy to want to help even when he doesn’t act like it, yeah? So why not other people here? If we’re stuck together, we should help each other.” Or that was Mojo’s outlook, even if it seemed like Edan didn’t appreciate or even recognize the things to be grateful for, even in here. She wouldn’t berate her for it though, it was more important to just... make it better, like Reece was trying to do, albeit in very different ways.
“Already planning on talking to Jae about Pippa. She has hurt me. Though it was just one hit, nothing that was the end of the world, but it could get worse.” She looked over at Mojo. “What am I going to tell them about Matt? There’s nothing to tell.” And he had said that he would tell Jae about hitting Pippa if she asked or he had to. What would Edan say beyond that.
Mojo frowned thoughtfully at that, having to bite back what she’d been told when Reece came by earlier. Spreading word of a rapist wouldn’t make it any easier to catch him, whoever he was. “Just tell them you got spooked. I know it sounds dumb, but if any of them will listen? Tell them there’s a risk, there’s something to watch for. And if we’re lucky it won’t ever matter, but if something bad happens?” she mused, “It’s better that they at least know it freaked you out. Hell, maybe whoever you talk to can just... make you feel a little better for doing it or something.”
"That sounds way too much like I'm accusing him without any basis. If I'm wrong he gets labeled and watched for no good reason. I can't do that to him." Edan pushed one hand through he hair, a tangled mess of curls she'd let air dry. "I don't know if I have that in me. Seems cruel if in wrong."
“Seems like there’d got to be some middle ground between accusing him and doing nothing, though,” Mojo pointed out gently. “It’s not a crime to say you get freaked out in here, either by the place or the people, and I’d think that saying so to the people who claim to want to keep us safe? That’s a good thing for you and them. I’m not saying to give them Matt’s name and room number,” she clarified with a small grin, “Just, like... I saw that army boy on the journals, Brady, he seems like he’d be good for a level perspective when shit gets freaky. And it sounds like that’s what you need. Not an investigation or body guard or something, just cooler heads and reliable stress relief.” Which had her nodding at the dwindling flames of the trash can and grinning wider. “Maybe request a concrete slab where you can safely torch stuff or something?”
“I’m not telling Brady,” Edan countered with a shake of her head. “That would be the same as telling my brother. Or my dad. He’d know exactly who it is and he’d have Matt against a wall with a hand to his throat.” She let out a breath and took a moment to sit down near the trash can. “It isn’t a crime, but I don’t want to be freaked out. I am stronger than this.” She looked at the flame and shrugged. “Or I could dig a fire pit.”
And once again, Mojo had to bite her tongue. She didn’t often mind coming off harsh, but sometimes there were points in her mind that she knew went too far, and wasn’t looking to do that tonight. Edan was nice, definitely one of the good ones around here, and it’d suck to step on her toes the first time they met. “You could dig one, yeah. That’s a good call, really,” she agreed instead of voicing anything that’d be taken wrong, “I’d just say put something on the journals? A request or a notice for other people or something. Seems like surprises get taken pretty bad around here, not that I don’t get why.”
“Seems like a good idea. Warning people. But...maybe someone else could use it. There’s another..another one of us here.” Another firebug. She smirked for a moment. “Or maybe just a bonfire with marshmallows, because why the heck not? We can pretend everything’s normal.”
“Another one of who?” Mojo asked with a faux-innocent grin, “Hot ladies with dark hair? Because you, me, and Carmel makes three.” She chuckled at herself for a moment, head shaking. “I’m guessing you meant another person who likes lighting up or something? Which, yeah, if you didn’t set the fire out here before then there’d have to be.” And that was worrying, given that Mojo believed Edan’s explanation of her own fire fixation. She didn’t want to hurt anyone with it. But if there was someone else... did they? Would they? “And marshmallows, sure, but let’s skip the pretending part. I don’t think that’d get taken too well. We can just have a ‘this whole situation is fucked and on shaky ethical ground’ camp-out. With a better name for it.”
That earned Mojo a smile, even if it didn’t rise to Edan’s eyes. “Another arson yeah. But I don’t...well I think I know who set this fire. Or I have a better guess.” It didn’t seem Leandro’s style. And it fit the bill with Pippa better than anyone else. “A ‘this situation is fucked’ camp out. Think anyone would come? Even with the better name?”
“Oh I know it. Especially once we have official bartenders to bring booze and entertainers to force us to have some fucking fun,” Mojo stressed with mock-intensity. “Plus, once we do? The rest of us’ll have jobs too, and that’s the perfect thing to do after a day at work. I used to do it all the damn time.” She could even see it in her mind’s eye; a grill, a keg, some sing-alongs or something light-hearted. “I think if you frame it like that, it’ll draw the others just because they recognize how fucked this is, and see us doing the same. Kindred spirits and shit, you know? And who’s your guess for the fire? Just so we can avoid inviting them.”
Edan couldn’t quite see it, even if she’d done the same thing herself with friends. Maybe she couldn’t see it because she wasn’t up for a party just yet. “Hopefully. Though looks like I’m starting tonight.” She looked back at the fire for a moment, toeing the charred ground. “Pippa. I think she’s the one who tore up my room too. She did flood the laundry room. I was there for that.”
Mojo’s eyebrows rose as Edan put the accusations together, whistling softly in surprise. “Water, fire, and good old breaking shit? She’s a renaissance asshole, if it’s all her,” she said softly. “That’s some dedication, seriously. But like, why you? What’d you do that got her focus?”
“Is it really that hard to have a mind for chaos and have a hard time of it?” She sighed a little and looked at ground again. “I think it’s because I caught her fucking with the dryers. And...yeah. I guess that was enough.” There was also Matt, but she wasn’t ready to bring that up yet. Or at all.
“So Pippa’s crazy, possibly ‘eat your face’ crazy. Got it,” Mojo confirmed with a smart little nod and a look of distaste. She’d figured it was bound to happen eventually, the odds favored it with how many convicts there were here. And really, for all the good feelings so far? Mojo knew any of them could’ve just lied about their convictions, there was no proof to confirm any of it.
Reece, Evan, Carmel... any of them could’ve been genuinely dangerous. But that line of thinking would leave her locked in her room for days, or craving some outlet like the one Edan had found. It’d get Mojo to hurt herself. “If she’s really nuts, that’s probably more than enough,” Mojo agreed, “And if you’re on her shit list, it’s probably not a great call to hang around the room she knows is yours. You need somewhere else to crash for the night?”
“Pippa is crazy. So watch that.” She looked over at Mojo, making a face. “No it’s not. And Matt’s not an option at the moment. And...even if Evan would take me in, I can’t get there.” She cut her eyes to Brady’s room, then the fire again. “I might just stay here.”
“That’s not safe, Edan,” Mojo argued with a shake of her head, reaching up to untie her hair and run her fingers through it. “You can’t just sit out here until the fire goes out, then start a new one or something. If we weren’t in a facility full of murderers and psychos, maybe, but since we are? Yeah, no.” And on this point, she wasn’t afraid to offend. Not with Evan asking her to keep Edan safe and Reece telling her about what there was to be kept safe from. “C’mon, I’ve got candles, a box of matches, a pair of stale cigarettes, and a warm beer I’ll share with you. It’ll be like date night, except I won’t be getting lucky.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep even if I did stay out here. And I’m not helpless.” Edan sighed though, knowing that Mojo was right. It wasn’t safe. Not even with the ice pick. At the offer she looked over at Mojo. “I’ve got more candles in my room than I know what to do with. Which I kind of love.” She got up and scooped some of the dirt from the scorched earth and dumped it into the trash can to snuff out the last of the fire. “But sure...Better than anything else I’ve got.”
“That’s what splitting the beer is for. Small bits of alcohol trigger the same shit in the brain as turkey, whatever the chemical is that makes you sleepy? I dunno,” Mojo explained with a shrug, “But yeah, I read about it once, how after you’re done being drunk you’re tired, or you drink so much you pass out. Didn’t have to read about that one.”
She hopped up with a grin, dusting off her ass and nodding for Edan to follow back towards the door to her room. “No worries, this is just for tonight I’m thinking, and however bad your room got trashed? We can fix it. I’ll help if you need it, even,” Mojo offered as she started off. “And we don’t even need to share the bed if that’s weird,” she added, laughing richly, “I’ll couch it.”
“Yeah maybe it’ll help.” Edan looked up at her as she got up, frowning a little. After a moment she got up as well, reaching for the trashcan, dragging it with her. “I can take the couch. Or we can share...I don’t think I’ve done that since college.” For a few steps she was quiet, then she stopped. “Thanks for this.”
“It’s all good,” Mojo assured her, looking back over a shoulder as she stopped long enough for Edan to catch up. “I’d want someone doing it for me when I was in a bad spot, and I know that even if I don’t get where you’re at right now? It’s not easy. I’d rather be making assumptions and trying to help than playing it safe.” And even if Evan had been the one to prompt this, it wasn’t for him, not to Mojo.
This was a chance to know Edan, to see what her life was, and how much of it she appreciated. And the things she didn’t? Well, maybe they needed changing. It seemed like she knew that, though. Mojo liked that, liked knowing that even if nothing could be perfect, it could at least be seen. Of course, she didn’t actually say any of that in the moment. “And no thanks needed either. This is... shit, it’s how we get through. Together, even when we’re strangers.”
Edan picked up the trashcan more, following after Mojo again. “No..no it’s not easy. But...I’ll be okay. After tonight.” She watched the other woman. “We don’t have to be strangers you know.”
“That was kinda my goal here,” Mojo admitted, winking at Edan as she started off once more. “I’m not ever really good with making a plan, which includes planning to meet people? But it’s one of my favorite things when I do, even when I end up not liking someone. So far, with you? Not the case. So I figure that if it’s good up to now and you don’t kick me in your sleep, then we’re good from here on out. Hanging out or whatever, I mean,” she explained as they drew closer to her room.
“I don’t think I kick in my sleep. I was a twin. Didn’t sleep alone for the first ten years of my life.” Edan smiled just a hair again. “So we’re good on that front. We could hang out some. I don’t...have that many friends here. Even less now I suppose.” Or at least with Matt not seeming as...Matt-like as he had before. “Maybe I’m the one who needs a goal about meeting more people.”
Mojo chuckled throatily as they reached her door, popping the key into the lock and twisting it open. “Actually, you’re back where you were friend-wise. If you lost one but we’re cool then that keeps a change of the total from happening. Go go G.E.D.,” she joked as she opened the door. “And maybe, it hasn’t hurt me yet. Try it out tomorrow, y’know? Shoot for meeting one new person. And until then? I’ll give you the tour and show you the gift shop...”
“Well I get to meet Jae tomorrow while I tell her what happened to my room,” Edan said trying for a smile. “There’s a gift shop in your room? I apparently got the short stick in the room selection.” She smiled a little more and found it came easier. She left the trashcan outside of Mojo’s room and followed her inside. It wasn’t perfect, but Mojo was right, she was back at the same number of friends than she’d been at before it started. Which was good enough.