Jessica Jones (thehword) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-05-09 15:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, jessica jones, veronica mars |
Who: Jessica Jones and Veronica Mars
What: Going for drinks
When: Recently
Where: A bar
Rating/Warnings: Low/none
Status: Complete
Veronica had grown somewhat find of the P.I. she had met a few weeks ago. They had yet to share any more cases but, there was a certain comradery there. The life of a private detective was not glamorous. It barely ever involved solving actual crime. There were few people who got what it was like. All the work that went into taking a photo of someone in a compromising position. Jessica did. And she wasn’t a slimeball that played both sides for whoever gave her more money. Therefor Veronica liked her.
Tonight they were out at a bar. Veronica didn’t have to worry about breastfeeding anymore and could drank as she pleased. Which is precisely why she ordered herself some whiskey. “How are you liking it here?” she asked Jessica since the woman was still fairly new to the area. Of course Veronica couldn’t help but wonder if she was a dreamer. Which she would be able to tell depending on how Jessica answered.
When her whiskey was placed in front of her, Jessica knocked it back quickly and then ordered another. At Veronica’s question, she pinched the bridge of her nose and inhaled deeply. “This place…” she started, not sure how to continue. She wanted to act like it was just one more stop on her long list of places she had lived, but she couldn’t. No where else she lived had living peeps and killer rabbits and men who could walk away from having their throat ripped out without a scratch.
Every fiber in her body was telling her it wasn’t worth it, and that she should just turn around and run to somewhere else. But there was something that was keeping her here. The idea of leaving just didn’t feel right, which was ridiculous but true. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly after a moment. “Whatever this place is, I wasn’t expecting it.”
That didn’t exactly give Veronica a 100% answer about the dreams. But it did let her know that Jessica had at least experienced some of the strangeness, which people who didn’t dream tended not to notice. Hell even Veronica’s own father seemed oblivious to the shit that went on, or just believed whatever bullshit cover up the government gave.
“Yeah,” Veronica agreed. “This place is definitely something.” She made sure to emphasize that last word letting Jessica know she knew just how bizarre this place could be and give her an opening to talk about it.
When Jessica had first seen the peeps, she had been, for a while, convinced that she was hallucinating. It wasn’t until she’d met Logan, and later Rachel, who had seen the same things that she was beginning to understand just how strange the place was. Even knowing that she wasn’t insane, it was still hard to talk about it without sounding like she was insane.
But Veronica, at least, with the way she emphasised her words, seemed to understand. At least to some extent. “On Easter I ran into these rabbits,” she said slowly, gauging Veronica’s expression. “They nearly ripped a guys throat out.”
Veronica hadn’t encountered the rabbits on Easter. The Peeps either, thankfully. Liam probably would have tried to grab them all. But she had heard about them.”I heard they were a real bitch,” Veronica commented as the bartender brought her next drink. “I didn’t run into those, or the peeps, but I was attacked by flying monkeys once.”
“Flying monkeys,” Jessica deadpanned. She knew that should probably surprise her, but at this point it didn’t. It just seemed to make sense for a place where living peeps and killer rabbits was the norm. “Of course there’s flying fucking monsters.” She shook her head. “How long have you been putting up with this stuff?”
Well she didn’t seemed shocked. Which Veronica already had a feeling she wouldn’t given what she had encountered. Once you encountered one type of strange animal, monster, or demon, nothing seemed impossible or too far fetched. “About four years now,” Veronica answered honestly. “The longer you stay the more you get used to it.”
“Something to look forward to then,” Jessica said sarcastically. She drank deeply from her cup, and once it was empty she motioned to the bartender to fill it up again. “The hell is all of this anyway?” she asked. “No one I’ve talked to seems to have any idea.” Or any idea what she was talking about, the few times she’d tried to talk to someone off the Network about it.
Veronica really had no idea what it was all was either. Only that the strange things that happened were usually linked to someone’s dreams. But then she wasn’t even sure if Jessica had experienced the dreams yet. “You ever have strange dreams? Like of another life?”
Jessica frowned. She’d had one dream, vivid in its realness, but it wasn’t a dream that she’d never had before. In fact, she’d had the dream over and over again over the last 18 years, ever since she’d lost her family in the car crash. The sound of twisting metal, the screams of her family, they had all been more vivid in the dream than they had been since the first few years after the accident, but it was hardly a dream that stood out to Jessica, despite it.
“You mean like the ones everyone talks about on the Network? No, nothing like that,” Jessica answered.
Veronica wasn’t sure exactly how to explain the strangeness without the dreams. Because really it was the only explanation. But why the dreams happened? She didn’t have a clue about that. Or why Jessica wasn’t having them. “Yeah, like those,” she paused taking a drink. “I’m pretty sure they have to do with whatever brings all the strange stuff here.”
Jessica shook her head. This was too much. Way too much. Why the hell had she decided to move here again? “So you get those dreams too, huh?” she asked. “What do you dream about?”
“Not so much anymore,” Veronica answered with a shrug. It had been years since she had dreamed anything new. “But they were basically about me solving murders in my town. As a teenager. Because the police were fucking incompetent.”
“Well, at least some things don’t change even in the dreams,” Jessica said wryly. “Guess the police are incompetent no matter what world they’re in.”
Veronica raised a brow at that. “I take it there’s a story there?” because the cops in the county were pretty competent. At least as competent as they could be with all the shit Orange County threw at people. But she knew the cops here, was friends with some of them. As much as they got on her nerves, she wouldn’t exactly call them incompetent.
“Just the story of a PI who’s been in the job for a while and has had to work alongside enough cops to know better.” She had yet to work with any of the Orange County police officers, but she didn’t think they’d be much better.
“The ones here aren’t so bad,” Veronica informed her. “They help me out from time to time.” Mostly she just used them for their connections and databases she didn’t have access to. But hey, whatever worked.
Jessica frowned. After she had dreamed again of her family’s accident, she had run into a police officer who had been unexpectedly kind to her. Jessica hadn’t really known how to react at the time, but she had been sure that it had just been a one-off. One of those lone good cops who actually cared about people instead of caring about having power over people. “I did run into one who didn’t seem so bad,” Jessica admitted. “Maybe I’ll wait and see before I decide they’re just like every other cop.”
Veronica gave a small nod to small nod, showing it was a good idea. “That’s enough about cops,” she said finishing off her drink. “I get enough of cop talk at work,” and at home. “Other than the weird shit, you liking it here?”
That was fine by Jessica. She took about as much pleasure in talking about police as she did talking to them. She shrugged. “It’s kind of hard to ignore the weird shit,” Jessica said. “But yeah, I guess it’s not too bad. I’ve lived in worse places, at least.”
“Weird shit is part of the charm,” Veronica quipped. “And if you decide to stick around for awhile.” Which it seemed like she was headed in that direction. “I have an opening for a new drinking buddy.”
Jessica didn’t really do drinking buddies, in that she didn’t really have buddies in general. She picked a bar, she sat, and sometimes people would come and talk to her. But there weren’t people that she went out of her way to drink with.
But she found herself liking Veronica, and it wasn’t like Veronica was asking her to get together to do their hair and nails. “Yeah?” Jessica asked. “Well, I guess I could use one too.”