InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Life is a Cabret!"

jude hyler + logan cale (morethaneyes) wrote in thereincarnates,
@ 2010-11-14 23:25:00

Entry tags:

» previous character: jude hyler, » previous character: sam victorio

Who: Jude Hyler and Sam Victorio
What: Yet more people trying to overcome their lack of reincarnation.
When: Sunday night.
Where: Jude's (Logan's) penthouse, Seattle.
Warnings: TBD.

Jude had noticed Logan's absence the moment he'd opened his eyes that morning. It wasn't just the lack of another voice in his head, it was the complete silence from the other man's thoughts. Cale had always been mulling over something, and it had always bled in to Jude's s brain. He'd found it annoying most of the time, trying to think around someone else, but not having it bugged him even more. All of a sudden he was all alone. The disembodied voice that had been his constant companion had split without so much as a good-bye. And now he was Jude again. Just Jude. A normal guy, one of the mundanes that he'd scorned ever since he picked up the added benefit of a constant second opinion.

Like so much else, the trauma of waking up alone had driven him to drink. It didn't help. He didn't have a cultured condescending voice telling him to lay off the booze. So he spent more time glaring at the wall than he did actually drinking. He'd already checked the boards. Reincarnates or not, they'd all crowded together, expressing their woes. It wasn't exactly comforting that a lot of other people were having just as hard of a time adjusting. They'd all been reduced to a bunch of whining humans, completely at a loss of what to do with themselves now. It was fucking sad, but he couldn't work up much give-a-shit. If they wanted to blubber to each other, more power to them. At least they still had some kind of community, even it was more of a support group for what they'd lost than anything to be proud of.

He was knocked out of his brooding by banging on the door. Automatically expecting the worst, he snatched the handgun out of a drawer in the desk. Even without Cale, he'd cultivated a habit of doing all his major thinking in the office. Who the fuck would come calling at this hour anyway? Jude cracked open the door, peering suspiciously in to the hallway. He took a step back, huffing out a breath that was half relieved and half irritated. "Jesus, Sam. You scared the shit out of me."

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notanumber
2010-11-15 06:14 am UTC (link)

Sam wasn't coping well. She'd gotten used to Max. They didn't always agree, but they were together. For most of her life, Max was the one person she could count on not desert her. Without her, she was totally alone. Being alone freaked out Sam even more than suddenly being, well, normal. No, normal wasn't the right word. She was broken. She might still have been more fit than anyone had any right to be, but without Max she wasn't going to be leaping walls or throwing around guys twice her size.

She'd realized something was wrong almost immediately. Suddenly Max was just gone. It was like someone who had been sitting beside her vanished in the blink of an eye. She felt weak and tired. Very tired. She almost never slept, but she'd curled up on the couch and before she knew it it was morning. In the bathroom she'd looked at the back of her neck with a hand mirror. Intricate tattooed designs now surrounded a patch of perfectly bare skin. There was no trace of the X5 barcode.

Everyone else seemed to be experiencing the same thing, on all sides. The Resistance didn't know any more than their opponents did, but something strange was going on. Sam didn't like it. She felt indescribably vulnerable. She'd always thought she just wanted to be normal, but now she would have given anything to be a revved up genetic freak again. She'd come to rely so much on the talents she'd be given. Without them she was afraid to leave the apartment she'd been staying in. She hated being afraid.

The only thing she hated more than being afraid though was being alone. The quite was driving her crazy. She went out into the city and cautiously made her way towards Jude's place. The gun she almost never bothered to carry was tucked into her coat pocket in case she ran into trouble on the way, or on the way back. Without Logan, Jude didn't exactly have any good reason to let her in, but she couldn't think of anywhere else to go.

He did let her in, although he didn't seem very happy about it. He had a gun too, and looked just as nervous as she felt. She stepped inside the penthouse, quickly closing the door behind her. "Sorry. Next time I'll break in, so you know it's me? But I wasn't exactly feeling up to scaling the building today." She looked at him with a mixture of irritation at the welcome she'd gotten and pure relief to see him. She offered him the simplest explanation she could for why she'd suddenly shown up, "The quiet was killing me."

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morethaneyes
2010-11-15 06:29 am UTC (link)

His irritation didn't fade. Why was she here? Without Max, there was really no reason to hang around. Was there? She was probably just going back to what felt familiar, like being here might bring them back. Or at least make it a little more bearable. Jude hadn't left yet for the same reason. He was honestly afraid that if he set foot outside the penthouse, it would disappear, just like Logan. Then there was no proof that he hadn't been crazy the whole time. Being here made it feel more real, a guarantee that he hadn't been some psycho hearing voices.

"Right." He sighed. Just because he was pissed off at what had happened didn't mean he had to take it out on her. It wasn't like it was Sam's fault that their head buddies had taken a hike. "Sorry. I know what you mean." Setting the gun on the table next to the door, he pushed his hands through his hair. The quiet was probably what was getting to him. His place was silent as the grave. Or it had been, until Sam showed up.

He headed back toward the living room, figuring she would follow. "You want anything to drink? It's not helping, but it can't fucking hurt."

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notanumber
2010-11-15 06:48 am UTC (link)

She stood uncertainly in the entryway for a moment. The penthouse seemed less familiar now, without all of Max's memories of it. It was just a half-remembered dream, not the haven it had felt like before. Although the memories she had of it that were her own were all good ones. Hopefully Jude felt the same way. At least he hadn't told her to take a hike as soon as she showed up.

Following him into the living room she noticed the bottles on the table. He already had a good head start. "Hell yes. You never know, it might help eventually." She sat down, making the conscious decision to act as if she were as at home here as she'd always been, but her calm was obviously forced. She wanted to act like nothing was different, even if that completely contradicted the reason she'd come in the first place, becuase the other option was freaking out completely. "I hadn't thought about it until now, but now that I'm just another girl, you might actually be able to get me drunk."

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morethaneyes
2010-11-15 06:59 am UTC (link)

"Or we'll be too drunk to remember what we were worried about." He poured two glasses, handing one off to her. Before he took a drink, he raised his glass in a mock toast. There really wasn't anything to celebrate, but at least he was done drinking alone. And Sam seemed just as ill-adjusted as he did. He shouldn't have been glad about that, yet he was, if only because it meant that he wasn't the only one from their story losing his mind. Even without Max, he had to admit that it was a comfort to have her here. They may be down to a single person per body, but at least they weren't completely alone.

Jude sat down next to her, knocking back a liberal mouthful of alcohol. "Huh. So I won't be the only one passed out on the couch." He glanced over at Sam, pausing a bit before he got to the more awkward portion of their conversation. "Are you okay? I mean, I lost an opinionated journalist, and I don't know how I'm going to function. Are you, I don't know, tired or anything?"

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notanumber
2010-11-15 07:30 am UTC (link)

"That would work too." She responded to his sarcastic toast with a raised eyebrow, but half raised her glass too. "Here's to forgetting to worry," she said under her breath. If she could manage that she'd be fine, and she'd have Jude to thank, even if it was only for a little while.

"Maybe not. Think it's big enough for two?" She sipped her drink, imagining that she could already feel it going to her head. She'd managed, a few times to get a nice buzz going, even get tipsy, if she worked at it. She hadn't actually gotten drunk since Max had shown up though, it just didn't work. The last time she'd been pass-out-on-the-couch drunk she'd been a teenager, rebelling against everything. Well, at least some things didn't change.

"Tired? No. I actually slept though, which tipped me off that something was wrong. I..." She paused, trying to find some way to explain how she felt and debating whether or not to explain it at all. "I don't know what to do. I feel broken, like I'm fucking helpless now." Sam looked down, not willing to meet his eyes when she admitted that.

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morethaneyes
2010-11-15 07:51 am UTC (link)

Looking down at the couch they were currently sitting on, he shrugged. "Sure. As long as you don't snore." It was a good thing he'd had the foresight to put the bottle close by. If he had his way, they'd both be well and truly tossed by the time the night was over. That might not have been the healthiest way to cope, but he couldn't think of any better options. And it fucking sucked that he was relying on just his own thoughts to try to figure out what to do. That had him taking another drink, silently telling Cale that he could come back as soon as he wanted.

He was surprised by her slight breakdown. For a second he just looked at her, baffled. It was another reminder that he didn't actually know Sam that well. He'd never expected to see her like this, even if Max did have a slightly more vulnerable side. "Hey..." Deciding to do what felt right, he scooted over, wrapping an arm around her back. He wasn't always the nicest guy, but he would have to be a complete ass to see a woman he'd started to care about look so defeated and not do something. "It's not so bad. I bet you could still take me."

Jude smoothed back her hair, tilting his head around so that he could look at her. "Good news is you don't have to do anything. Not yet." She was making him feel even more awkward. "Look, I'm shit at this, but it'll be all right. One way or another."

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notanumber
2010-11-16 03:53 am UTC (link)

He did suck at this, but it was really sweet how he was trying to make her feel better. It was working too, in a strange way. She hadn't realized Jude could be sweet. Logan was, frequently, but the two men were so different sometimes. For just a moment she was struck with a sudden desire to just turn into his arms and cry and to hide there until things got better. She knew she'd regret it though. That wasn't at all like her. She didn't want him to think of her that way, and she'd never forgive herself for acting so vulnerable in front of anyone.

She sat back, biting her lower lip for a second and trying to pull herself together. Then she tossed back the rest of her drink. The feeling of the alcohol going to her head was no longer completely imagined. "You're right. We'll get through this, one way or another." She looked at him with a determined smile. "So for now, let's get drunk."

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morethaneyes
2010-11-17 02:23 am UTC (link)

He watched her carefully, hoping she wasn't about to really let loose. It looked like she might, for half a second, and he'd about reached the limit of his ability to comfort.

Getting her drunk, though, that he could do. After all, that was his coping mechanism for choice. It wasn't that hard to walk another person through it. Jude snagged the glass out of her hand, giving her a refill before she had to ask. While he was at it, he added some more to his own glass. "Now that's the best idea I've heard all night."

Handing the glass back to her, he returned her grin. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a conversation with someone without Logan's voice giving commentary. It was slightly disorienting. There was no other opinion for him to call on when he got stumped. It was also kind of liberating, being the only on in his head forming said opinion. Maybe there were a few upsides to his other half disappearing. "At least we've still got Logan's liquor cabinet for the night, huh? That should speed this along."

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notanumber
2010-11-17 05:14 am UTC (link)

She laughed a little, not even sure what she was laughing at. Maybe it was just the insanity that was their lives, or maybe it was the results of that first drink on an empty stomach. She really had no idea what her actual alcohol tolerance was, but this was as good a time as any to find out. There were a lot of things she could experiment with, being only herself.

"It should, and at least it's good stuff too. Think he'll be annoyed if he comes back to find we've drained his stash?" She leaned against him slightly, noticing that his arm was still around her. Maybe she wasn't totally alone. Staring at the amber liquid in her glass she felt calmer than she had since Max vanished. She felt almost content. She could be okay with this. For now.

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morethaneyes
2010-11-18 05:12 am UTC (link)

"Probably. What doesn't annoy him?" He was laughing, too. This had to be the first time in history he'd been able to talk shit about his reincarnate without feeling a buzz of annoyance at himself. It was easy for the way one half felt to affect the other. He was happy to find out that he enjoyed Sam's company even without Logan and Max in the picture. That would have been a real kick in the ass, to find out that she was completely different when Max was helping to call the shots. Then again, he wasn't that different with Logan. It made sense that not everyone would change. They were all still who they were, their brains were just a bit lighter.

Jude held her closer, smiling in to his glass. Yeah, this was a great turn of events. At least he still had something going for him. "Though if we're draining it, forget what I said about he couch. We're gonna end up on the floor."

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notanumber
2010-11-18 05:43 am UTC (link)

"Good point. He was always a little high strung. Not that I have any room to talk." The world their reincarnates came from wasn't exactly conducive to relaxing, anyone would be wound a little tight what with the constant state of fear and paranoia. She'd take the Agency, Camelot, and whatever the mundanes came up with anyway over Manticore and martial law. This was a fight they might actually make some progress in, if they were lucky. If it even mattered, without their reincarnates. With that thought, Sam took another drink.

"Floor, couch, it's all good." She grinned teasingly, turning to look up at him. "I bet you end up on the floor before I do anyway." That was based on absolutely zero evidence, but she'd go with it. Sam tried to remember if she'd been this cocky and overconfident before Max or if it had come along with the super-soldier abilities. No, she'd always been like this. Possibly worse, when she was a teenager. She had mellowed out some, although no one she knew now was likely to believe that.

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