piper mclean. (charmspeaks) wrote in vascaptiolog, @ 2014-01-07 23:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | joey mccoy, piper mclean |
WHO: Piper & Joey
WHERE: Museum; Joey's Room
WHEN: Day 58, night time
WHAT: Piper needs to break some news to Joey
RATING: low
STATUS: log; complete
It was hard to believe what she had read, and by some miracle, Joey hadn’t yet. It wasn’t that Piper was close with Stiles, but he was a good person, and she knew Joey was close to him. Or at least had been, and she shouldn’t read the news over the journals. It was the last thing she wanted to tell anyone. But at least it wasn’t the worst news possible. He was still alive, and that was what counted. When she found out the Joey was in her room, she scribbled back a note, half leaped off of her bunk bed and ran out the door, across the main room and into the room that Joey had claimed for herself. Moving at such a speed in sock feet, when she tried to stop, she went sliding across the museum floor and into Joey’s room. As silly as an entrance as it was, she somehow managed to look completely graceful while doing so. She came to a stop, and looked up at Joey. It would be clear to her that Piper was not coming in with good news. “Something’s happened.” Piper told Joey, and then bit her lip. “There’s been an incident. Simon hurried of here not too long ago, and now I know why.” this was the very last thing she wanted to deliver to Joey, she was having a hard enough time as it was. “Stiles is hurt, Joey.” she said gently, walking toward her. “It’s bad. Someone attacked him. All of the doctors are operating on him now...but” Piper shook her head, waiting for Joey to react. “He wasn’t in good shape when they found him.” Joey had a tendency to flip through the journal to the most recent thing she could see and then flipping back from there. It was really a habit she ought to break, because it sometimes caused her a little confusion and forced her to backtrack anyway, but it was a habit all the same. So when she’d seen Piper’s message, she wondered if Carl had sent her a message earlier to ask her to leave and, in spite of Piper’s instruction, she’d started to turn back in the journal to look for it. Piper’s entrance surprised her, because she hadn’t expected it to be that fast and the inexplicable grace with with the other girl carried herself, even in socks on a hardwood floor like that startled a laugh out of her. “What the hell, Piper?” she asked, caught between incredulous and amused. But when she really looked at Piper’s face and the other girl started to talk, the levity fell away as fast as it had cropped up. Joey closed her book and sat up. “Oh my God!” she gasped, hands covering her mouth and eyes wide. “Wh...when? What happened??” She walked over to the foot of the bed, drawing one leg underneath her and sitting down, turning her body to face Joey. “He was stabbed.” he said clearly, looking Joey right in the eye. She kept the details from Joey for now, she wasn’t sure that was something Joey really needed to know. Derek could be right about that. Had it been Piper, she’d be pissed if someone held back details from her, but she and Joey were not the same. “Not too long ago, I think. I don’t know the exact time, but very recently.” the attacker was still out there, and that was the scary part. “It wasn’t like when those other two bodies showed up. They think it’s the work of someone inside the town, not Management. Which means the want-to-be-killer is still out there. It’s not safe to go out tonight. That’s why I said you need to stay here.” It wasn’t safe to go out period. Not that it mattered if Management wanted you. But now someone in here couldn’t be trusted, and that was worse. “I’m sorry, Joey.” Joey’s breath hitched and her eyes went wider still, if that was even possible, when Piper explained what had happened. Who would want to stab Stiles? Everybody liked Stiles, as far as she could tell, with maybe the exceptions of Carl and Piper, but neither of them would try to stab him over it, she was completely sure of that. She wanted to remind Piper that Tate was alone and he shouldn’t be, if there was a killer on the loose, but she knew that would end in a fight and that was the last thing she needed or thought she could endure right now, so, even though it ached in her heart, she said nothing. She’d check in with him over the journal as soon as Piper left the room and make sure that he was okay. “...but he’s okay, right?” she blurted out. “Stiles is okay, though, right? He’ll be okay?” She wished she could say something comforting. She also wished she could lie. But in this case she couldn’t. Because she had no idea if Stiles was going to be okay, and she couldn’t say he would in case he wasn’t. Piper shook her head and shrugged. “I don’t know.” she admitted with a shake of her head. “All I know is the doctors are working on him.” Hopefully they could save him. But seven stab wounds and a drowning was a lot to try and survive. The crazy part of it was that it was Stiles. He managed to piss some people off and make them not trust him, but who would want to hurt him, let alone try and kill him? He was a nice person, he seemed to get along with most people. The Management already made it clear that he was their favorite, so unless they were suddenly bored with him, they weren’t to blame. There was someone in the town who did this, and they didn’t know. Maybe Stiles’ did, but until he woke up, if he woke up, that wasn’t much help. Joey's chin started to wobble as Piper shrugged. She said they didn't know whether Stiles was okay or not and some part of Joey wanted to ask more questions, but Piper had already made it pretty clear that she didn't know anything more than she'd already said. "Who would do that? Stab Stiles, who would do that?!" she squeaked against the lump in her throat. She was trying very hard not to cry, because if she started, she might never stop. "Where? I mean...outside? Or did someone go get him inside or...?" Piper bit her lip, trying to figure out what to tell her without painting the same picture for her as Derek did for her. She wasn’t sure Joey would be able to handle it. As much as Piper wished she could just tell her, Joey always gave off the vibe as someone who needed to be sheltered, even just a little bit. It was too bad that wasn’t easy to do here. “Outside.” she wasn’t sure of the exact location where he was stabbed. “He was found in the lake.” No need to tell her that he had been dragged there just yet. “I think he was found just in time.” it was lucky he hadn’t drown. “Derek brought him to the gym where Will and Emily were.” “So you have to promise me you’re not going back out there tonight.” Whoever it was that was out there, she knew Joey didn’t stand much of a chance in a fight against them. “Whoever did it is still out there, no one should go outside alone, and definitely not at night.” Joey tried to remember where the lake was in respect to where they were in the museum. She'd been out there once with Tate, but that had been the only time. "That's across town, right?" she asked nervously, lowering one of her hands to her chest, closed into a fist as she chewed on the thumbnail of her other hand. It was a nervous gesture she didn't realize she was making. When Piper asked her to promise not to go outside, Joey's eyes widened again and she shook her head frantically. "Oh, my God, no. No I'm not going out there, no, I was just gonna ask if it's okay if I stay," she insisted quickly. "But I can go in the morning, right, when is light out, and go see him? I need to see him. I need to know he's okay..." And I need to go back and make sure Tate isn't alone. He's all alone right now, because I left... she thought miserably, worrying already. Piper nodded, the lake wasn’t exactly close to here. Though the town itself really wasn’t all that big to begin with, so she didn’t really consider anything to be all that far away, except for maybe some of the cabins. It was hard not to feel instantly relieved to know Joey wasn’t going to go back out tonight, even if she probably did want to go find Tate. A person Piper was not worried about, which she felt a little mean for. But she wasn’t going to say anything to Joey. “Sure, I can walk with you over. Or someone can.” Maybe she’d want to Tate to do it, since it wasn’t often they spent any time apart. “You can do what you want, Joey. I was just hoping you wouldn’t go out tonight.” Joey didn’t need Piper to tell her what she could and couldn’t do. If Stiles got through the night, she could only imagine the gym was going to be a busy place tomorrow. “I’d be too scared to tonight,” Joey admitted, ashamed. He looked down, then, sniffling a little and willing herself not to cry. She always felt like such a baby when she cried in front of Carl or Piper. They were so much stronger than she was. “I’m just...I’m gonna filter to Stiles and I’m gonna wait up until he replies. So that I know,” she said softly without looking up. After a short pause, her face contorted in the effort to keep it to herself, Joey looked up at Piper again. “Thanks for letting me know,” she said, her voice a little choked with effort. “I’d rather hear it from you, you know...than…” her voice trailed off and she gestured vaguely at the journal. Piper nodded, wondering if she should reach out to hug her, but in the end decided to keep her hands to herself. She didn’t want to set Joey off, sometimes that happened in situations like this. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?” she asked softly, standing up from the bed. “Or if you want me to stay. Anything.” That was exactly what Piper had been worried about when she saw the posting on the journal. Some people in this place had exactly no people skills. This Derek person seemed to love to make with the threatening tone, never mind that his choice of delivery could really mess with someone. Piper got that time was of the essence, but there were better ways to go about doing things. Maybe that was why she was the prophesied mediator of their group back home. Joey chewed her bottom lip and nodded her understanding of Piper’s offer. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted anyone around or whether she preferred to stay alone, staring at the journal, waiting for some sort of an update. She was worried about Stiles...she was worried about Tate being alone now that there was an attacker on the loose. “Thanks,” she replied. “I think...I just...think I wanna be alone right now…?” she asked more than stated, because she wasn’t actually entirely sure. “I’ll, um...let you know, though, yeah…” she went on, her voice a little distant. When she looked up at Piper again, it was like she was looking right through the other girl; she hardly registered her presence there. “Thank you.” Standing, Piper tried to gage Joey’s reaction, to see if there was something she could do for her. But it didn’t seem like there was. All they could both do was wait to hear about Stiles. Until then, if Joey wanted to be alone, she had to respect that. “I’ll be in my room.” she told Joey, just in case, for any reason, she needed someone. Turning, she headed back out of Joey’s section of the museum and back toward hers. |