InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I step out of the ordinary."

Danny Ketch (heavensfool) wrote in wariscoming,
@ 2011-02-24 21:05:00

Entry tags:

danny ketch, jessica drew/spider-woman

Who: Danny Ketch and Jessica Drew
When: Today! After Felicia clubbed ‘em over the head with the truth.
Where: A motel in Providence. No, no Deep Ones.
What: A talk about emotions! They both do this so well!
Rating: PG-13 to be on the safe side.

Danny wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to say to this. Felicia’s post certainly did make things awkward. It didn’t help that Danny had been sitting across from Jess when they’d both seen it. That had brought down tension so thick he was pretty sure that if he squinted he could actually see it. He really wasn’t happy with Felicia right now. There were good damn reasons Danny hadn’t brought up his feelings. Even if he had been talked into believing it was possible, now was so obviously not the time for this. He could’ve done it in his own time, when it was a good time, rather than just putting it out there when neither of them were expecting it. Even if the picture in the post was real, this wasn’t the way to go about it.

Danny glanced up at Jess without moving his head. He started to open his mouth, snapped it shut, and then went back to staring at his phone. The problem was, now that Felicia had put it out there, it was sort of impossible for them to talk about anything else. The elephant in the room was so huge that there was really no way to get around it without ratcheting up the tension each time. Maybe that would’ve been okay for some people, but this wasn’t what Danny did. He didn’t talk about things. Once upon a time he would have, but the last eleven years he’d had increasingly few people to talk to and he’d gotten very good at internalizing. How the hell was he supposed to talk about it now?

The answer was simple. He wasn’t. With a sound that was halfway between a grunt and a sigh, he rose from the chair he’d been sitting on and started moving toward the door, his phone clutched in a white-knuckled grip. He knew where he was going, and was so used to just going when he decided to go that he almost forgot he needed to mention anything at all. When the realization hit, he turned to look back at Jess, finally letting his phone drop back into his pocket. “I’m going to the, uh, store. For Pop-Tarts. The one,” he paused here as he realized he had no idea whether there was a store nearby. Turning sharply, he started searching out the windows for some indication of the direction of a store. Any store would do, considering the utility of Pop-Tarts. Even a gas station would suffice, but because Danny’s luck was pretty routinely bad, there were no such signs. Wincing, he turned back around and jerked his thumb in a random direction. “The one down the street. With the Pop-Tarts.”

The truth? The truth was that he was weak. Demons, monsters, slimeballs, those he could deal with. Renegade angels, ghosts, evil sorcerers, and the occasional alien? Sure. But emotions, relationships, life, he couldn’t handle. The truth was that he was taking a running start with every intention of leaping off the wagon and right onto a barstool. He could climb back on after some of the awkwardness had faded. He’d seen a bar coming in, the kind of place that reeked of alcohol, blared the music loud enough to drown out thoughts, and had air so thick with smoke you needed a shower after five minutes. It was exactly the kind of place Danny liked to go when he drank, the kind of place where you could go for one drink and leave in handcuffs with blood on your knuckles. Hopefully Jess wouldn’t be able to crack his stunningly inept code.

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nospiderbite
2011-02-25 03:52 am UTC (link)

Yes, Jessica had carried feelings for Danny around with her since returning to Lawrence. It was to be expected though. For her only a few months had passed between leaving Lawrence and showing up once more. So she had carried feelings around and she was perfectly fine with remaining just friends with Danny. The friend category wasn't complicated and it didn't make things worse down the line. Plus, she hadn't been delusional enough to think that he would have still carried any sort of torch for her, not even a puny little match, after eleven years had passed for him.

So Jess had been happy with the things were. Danny had become one of her best friends and she trusted him with her life, especially since he saved it when she had that demon in her. But then along came Felicia who just screwed all of that up.

Yes, Jessica trusted Danny. But that didn't mean she was the sort that enjoyed talking about things. Especially feelings. God, she hated doing that. It made her feel all vulnerable and weak. Plus extremely awkward. Maybe that was a side effect of skipping the childhood thing, she never learned how to share her feelings with people. Maybe she had just been born that way. But she just wasn't one to share feelings. Instead, she was one to internalize. One to bottle things up and hide the bottles away, hoping they never decided to explode.

But with Felicia's little bombshell it was sort of hard to avoid the talking and sharing thing. Jessica still wasn't sure if she even believed it in the first place, her mind coming back around to "It's been eleven years" every time she thought about it, but there it was. And he hadn't denied it.

When Danny stood up and made his way towards the door Jessica actually looked away from her monitor for the first time in what felt like (but wasn't actually) hours. It wasn't hard to tell that Danny was lying and she quickly thought over the possible places that he could really be going. "No you're not," she said, her voice nervous and slightly quieter than usual as she furrowed her brow at him. "You're either heading to that bar we passed or you're about to ditch me in Rhode Island."

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heavensfool
2011-02-25 04:55 am UTC (link)

Before Danny even realized what he was doing, he snapped out a defensive, "I wouldn't ditch you!" A second later, the fact that he hadn't denied going to the bar hit him, and he winced. "I probably should've lead with denying even noticing the bar, huh?" Danny took a moment to sag against the wall and try and regain at least a hint of his composure. Being called on his bullshit suddenly made him more embarrassed about it, and he knew that was probably a sign he needed to reevaluate his plan.

Okay, the booze was not a good plan. He knew that intellectually. He was an alcoholic. Sure, the hypothetical one drink he was rationalizing with was fine, but he knew damn well that he wouldn't be able to stop at just the one. That was kind of the way it worked and it was the way the booze got you. The problem was that it had become a coping mechanism, so even though his body was no longer craving it, his mind was still trying to rely on the comforting blackness of inebriation to deal with his problems. He had to remind himself of what he'd been through since getting back here, remind himself of how horrible it had felt in that glimpse of the future to be a drunk that had alienated pretty much everybody, before finally stepping away from the wall and dropping heavily back into the chair.

He leaned back in the chair and scrubbed both hands over his face and through his hair. "Sorry," he muttered, not quite looking at Jess. "Just, uh." He shrugged helplessly. She knew he had a problem, she knew he knew he had a problem, what more was there to say? The apology was more for the lie than the act it was covering up, and also for how utterly inept the lie was. Even he knew it was almost insulting in it's ineptitude.

Finally, the Spirit of Vengeance, who had faced down renegade angels, the devil himself, fallen gods and even a few aliens, took a deep breath and said, "So. We should probably talk about that picture." Another breath. He needed to be the one to take the leap first, here. "Which, uh. Was pretty much exactly what she said it was. On my end, I mean."

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nospiderbite
2011-02-25 06:13 pm UTC (link)

The last thing Jess wanted then was to see Danny go jump off his bandwagon. Especially since he'd been doing so well for the past couple of months. Sure, a lot of that probably had to do with the fact that she kept him on suicide watch pretty much every day between his attempt and her possession, then he seemed to feel the need to keep her on some sort of watch since her possession (yes, she had noticed), but that didn't mean she wanted him to fall off again.

And then he was admitting that what Felicia said was true, and that was just awkward. Not because she didn't return the feelings, because she really did, but because now it was out in the open and the talk had already been started. Now that they knew it would be impossible to be just friends. Yes, Jess wanted to be more than that, of course she did. But she had grown comfortable with what they were.

She stayed silent for another moment. Leaning forward to rest her arms on the table, one hand coming up so she could prop her chin on it, she looked away from him. The conversation was awkward enough without having to look at him and see the expressions on his face when she said things.

But there were bits that had to be addressed now. So that was what she did, she addressed them, in her own self-deprecating way. "You know," she started simply. "A girl could take you wanting to toss yourself off the bandwagon as a sign that you're that appalled by the fact that she's still got feelings for you." That was her way of admitting that yes, Felicia told the truth. That nosy little female cat.

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heavensfool
2011-02-25 08:12 pm UTC (link)

This conversation was already going so well. The awkwardness of the situation was distracting enough, and with that dark part in the back of his mind continuing to gripe at him about the lack of alcohol pouring into his system, his judgment was a little clouded. So instead of seeing the self-deprecating comment for what it was, instead it put him on the defensive. He leaned forward suddenly, a hurt look flashing across his face. "That wasn't-" He broke off for a moment, tried again with about the same amount of success, and then sighed and rose from the the chair again, pacing around behind it and momentarily turning away from Jess. He brought his hand up to clutch at his jaw for a second, massaging it thoughtfully as he pulled himself a little more back together. Then he turned and leaned forward, bracing himself against the back of the chair with one arm. "That wasn't what I was doing," he told her quietly.

He hesitated a second, looking down at the table. "I'm not good at this, this," he gestured between himself and Jess a few times, "this whole...talking thing. I'm used to being on my own most of the time and when I'm not, it's usually sort of a sausage fest of dudes in tights or monsters and neither of those groups is good at this." He looked heavenward for a moment as if to ask 'why me?' and then looked back to Jess, shrugging one shoulder helplessly. "I'm an alcoholic. First response to anything, including awkward talks, is a liberal dose of booze until I don't care anymore. It wasn't about you, it was me being stupid. You..."

He finally pulled the chair back out and dropped into it. He stared at the table listlessly for a moment, drumming his fingers nervously as he tried to figure out a way to word this. It was a delicate situation and he was kind of a blind, deaf and dumb ox when it came to these sorts of things. "Jess, you...I..." He closed his eyes, not quite willing to see the look on her face when he said this and she inevitably rejected him, "When I got back, the memories came back. They went from a bizarre dream from way back I barely remembered to stuff I knew actually happened. The feelings came with them, but even if they hadn't..."

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nospiderbite
2011-02-25 11:11 pm UTC (link)

"I'm not good at talking either," Jessica said with a shrug before letting the rest of what Danny said sink in. "You should probably know that by now though." And it was true. She didn't talk about emotions or anything, hadn't even opened up to anyone about just how much spending two weeks possessed had screwed her up. Plus, she was also used to being around either mostly guys or out on her own. Neither of those options really led to becoming a very open person.

She paused for a moment as the meaning behind what Danny said slowly began to sink in. There were a lot of reasons she could think of that would lend themselves to Danny being over her, ranging from how long it had been, in his timeline, since they were last together to how screwed up she was in general. Hell, it flat out didn't make any sense to Jessica that he would still harbor any sort of feelings for her, or that they could come back after such a long time. And she told him so.

"That doesn't make any sense," she said quietly as she turned her head to look at him once more. "It's been eleven years for you, Danny. Any sots of feelings you had for me should have been long gone by now. I mean, at least it's just been a few months for me, so the fact that I've still got feelings for you... at least it make some sort of sense."

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