Who: Aria, Hanna and Kennedy Where: Prison When: Early morning, last Monday What: Talking and stuff Warnings: Probably none Status: COMPLETED LOG
For the most part, Aria had been keeping to the kitchen. It was a calm change of pace after her stint in sentry. She knew now that she was a slayer, she should be acting the part, working as a raider or in sentry, but after she’d shot that man, she’d been too afraid to. She didn’t want to risk hurting anyone - that wasn’t what she was about. So, she’d been glad when Faith had sided with her against Kennedy, and she’d been able to return to the kitchen. She didn’t have many of the same supplies she’d had before the apocalypse, but it gave her a chance to keep her culinary skills in practice.
Despite her unwillingness to stay on sentry, her slayer skills were being kept in practice, too. Every morning, she was with Faith and Kennedy brushing up on combat skills, weaponry skills and all sorts of different things. She’d never expected to become a slayer, and she was still coming to terms with it in a lot of ways, but she’d learned a lot more about how to protect herself and her friends. And it kept her in good shape, which was always a plus, zombie apocalypse or not.
Faith had been really busy lately, so for the past couple of days, it had just been Aria and Kennedy again. She was up early this morning, so she slipped out of her cell and went down to the cell Kennedy shared with Hanna to meet her. Kennedy’s bunk was, unsurprisingly, empty; Aria knew she spent a lot of her nights with Carla. What did surprise here was seeing Hanna sitting up in her bed, flipping through an old magazine.
“Han? You okay?” she asked, sounding a little concerned. It wasn’t like Hanna to be up so early in the morning. When she could, she’d usually sleep well into the afternoon. “Something on your mind?”
Hanna had woken up much, much earlier than she usually did and much, much earlier than she wanted to. But once she had, she couldn’t go back to sleep and she was annoyed. Kennedy wasn’t there, so she couldn’t talk to her and she didn’t really want to get out of her warm bed to go looking for anyone else. This was when she really wished Caleb lived at the prison, but no, he had to be a stupid werewolf and live with this stupid alpha. Ugh. It was all so lame. No matter how hot it was!
Since she didn’t really have anything else to do, she wrapped her warm blanket around herself and sat up in her bed, reaching for a magazine she’d flipped through a million times. Since now they didn’t even make the magazines she loved to read so much, she was forced to go back to the big stack of old issues she’d had (and still did have) Kennedy grab for her when she went out on raids. She was flipping through the worn pages when she heard a familiar voice and looked up to see Aria. A half-hearted smile tugged at the corners of her lips and she shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.” A heavy sigh left her and she looked back down, turning the page of the magazine. “I miss fashion. I bet this stuff wouldn’t even be in style anymore and thanks to the stupid zombies, it’s all I have left.” Closing the magazine she looked up at Aria. “Sorry, sometimes I just wish things could go back to the way they were. Before all this.” She rolled her eyes and set her magazine aside. “Are you looking for Kennedy? She’s probably with Carla, as usual.”
A small, sympathetic smile touched Aria’s lips and she moved further inside. She pushed Hanna’s feet up and sat cross-legged on the bed across from her. Hanna didn’t even flinch; it wasn’t strange for them to move each other like this, not with how close they were. Since they’d all found each other again, they’d been particularly close - especially her and Hanna. Aria had been closest to Spencer before, but she came and went from the prison now. And Hanna and Emily had been closer once upon a time, but she was living out in the wilderness with Laura and Logan now that she was a vampire, so they didn’t see her as often. It had brought Aria and Hanna a lot closer, and Aria felt like she almost knew Hanna better now than she ever had before. She knew how much she missed what the world was before the virus broke out. She missed fashion and celebrities and the Biebs. But most of all, she knew Hanna missed her mom. Aria could relate; she missed her family too. Since she’d come into these powers, she’d thought about going out to find them. But being slayer didn’t make her any less human, and she didn’t want to risk getting bitten. She couldn’t do that to any of her friends, not when a little less than a year ago, they’d already thought she was dead.
“I’m not worried about Kennedy,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “The less time I have to spend training with her, the better.” She liked Kennedy well enough - she had really calmed down a lot since they started training - but she was demanding, and any break she could get, she would take. “What do you think we’d be doing?” she asked, arching one eyebrow at her friend. “If the world was still normal, I mean.”
Hanna arched a brow at Aria’s defiance. It amused her, because she had been witness on more than one occasion to Kennedy’s demanding behavior. She was scary and Hanna was a little impressed that Aria wasn’t phased by it. Even she was a little afraid of Kennedy, except when it came to decorating their room anyway. Hey, it was her room, she could decorate it however the hell she wanted. It wasn’t like Kennedy stayed there much anyway! She was always off with her much nicer girlfriend, Carla. Hanna liked Carla, she still wasn’t too sure about Kennedy. Mostly she just liked to do things to annoy her because it was funny to watch her get all worked up and upset.
“She’ll probably come looking for you with like, some kind of clipboard and whistle or something. I bet she’s a total drill sergeant. She seems like it. She’s still pissed at me for painting the walls ‘pink’.” She used air quotes for the word pink, rolling her eyes. “I mean seriously, anyone can tell it’s not pink, it’s rose!” Hanna scoffed, flashing a bright smile at Aria before growing serious again and lifting her shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t know. Probably still trying to figure out who the hell A is. But sometimes I wish it was just stupid things like A tormenting us instead of what the world’s like now. Emily and Caleb would still be human, you...well, I don’t know, you might still be the slayer thing, I don’t really know how that works. But, we wouldn’t be living in some lame horror movie, you know?” She sighed, a frown tugging down the edges of her mouth. “And my mom would still be…” She couldn’t finish that statement, she couldn’t accept what the truth might be.
Aria’s face fell, her heart aching for Hanna. She had always been close to her family, and she missed them all the time. But, she didn’t like to think they were dead. If she could make it, her mom, her dad and Mike had to be out there somewhere too. It was too hard to think that they were gone, even if it was probably true. She had to hold on to that hope.
“Your mom is out there somewhere, Han,” she said, reaching out to take her friend’s hands in her own. “I know it’s hard to be hopeful, but we have to be, you know?” She gave Hanna a small, encouraging smile.
“I kind of wish if we were still normal that A would stop tormenting us, at least,” she teased. “But I get it. I want all that, too. You don’t know how much. But I think,” she said slowly, tilting her head thoughtfully, “that the slayer thing might have still happened, eventually. From what Faith and Kennedy have told me, it’s kind of inevitable. I was called to it late, for some reason.” She shrugged. She still didn’t totally understand this slayer thing, the historical aspect anyway, but she knew that it meant she was stronger and faster than she used to be, that she could sense vampires and demons to an extent, and that her combat skills were suddenly much improved. Now she could better protect those she loved.
Hanna gave Aria a grateful smile, reaching out to give her hand a quick squeeze. Leave it to Aria to be the positive one. She really hoped it was true, that one day her mom would show up here even and prove that Aria was right. Maybe Caleb could like, sniff her out or something, even. She should totally ask him about that. Maybe they could go back to Rosewood to just look, that couldn’t hurt anything could it? Sure it was a super long drive, but they could get like, a ton of snacks and she had lots of CD’s. But then again, it was safer here than it was out there. She’d been here for awhile now, she could only imagine how much worse it had gotten. “Thanks Aria.” She said, pulling her hand back and resting it in her lap.
“But it’s still totally cool, you know, the whole slayer thing.” Hanna nodded, flashing a toothy grin. “You’re like a total bad ass now. Just think if we were back in Rosewood, you could like, kick A’s ass. And anyone else who screwed with us. It would be awesome. Between Spencer’s super detective skills, you being a total bad ass, Emily being awesome and my incredible fashion sense, we would be like, unstoppable! A would be scared of us instead of the other way around!”
Aria grinned right back. That was the Hanna she knew and loved. She understood Hanna being sad, but she just tried to live in the now. And right now, they had each other. Even Caleb had found his way back to them, which she knew Hanna had been thrilled about. She just wished he’d come around a little more often for her sake.
“Totally unstoppable,” she agreed. All this talk was starting to make her a little wistful. Two years ago, she never would have thought zombies were anything more than something out of a creepy horror movie, and now here they were, right in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. It really was a good thing she was a slayer now, though she wished it had kicked in when she was on the road and needed these skills a little more.
“Hey, you should come to training with me. Kennedy will whip you into ass-kicking shape too,” she teased. Hanna was probably the least physical of the four of them, but Aria knew if she got fired up enough, she could kick just as much ass as anyone else.
Hanna wrinkled up her nose in disgust. “Ew, no thanks. That sounds like way too much effort. And Kennedy is always such a bitch. I mean, seriously, you know there’s no way she’s not getting sex. Have you seen her girlfriend? They’re both totally hot and you know they’re having it, so why,” she rolled her eyes, “is she such a bitch all the time?”
“I don’t know.” A voice interrupted from the doorway of the cell and Hanna looked over to see her roommate standing there, arms crossed and looking like she always did, annoyed. “Why don’t you tell us, Hanna?” Kennedy tilted her head, lips twitching in amusement as her eyes moved between the two girls sitting on the bed. “Why are you so concerned about my sex life anyway? Someone sounds a little jealous.” The slayer smirked, pushing off the doorway. “Hey, it’s not my fault wolf-boy isn’t around for you to work out your own frustration on, but that doesn’t mean you need to worry about mine. Trust me, mine’s definitely not lacking. Maybe I’m a bitch because I can be.”
Kennedy shrugged, stepping into the room and settled her gaze on Aria as Hanna’s mouth just dropped open and a blush settled over her cheeks. “Are we training today or do you wanna sit around and have a slumber party with Hanna Montana here?” She teased, using the nickname she’d started calling her overly happy, super girly roommate.
Aria shook her head, amused despite the way Kennedy had made her friend blush. Watching the two of them interact was like watching a constant catfight. Sometimes when it got a little heated and intense, she’d even been called on to mediate. It wasn’t a job she’d asked for, but she’d always been that way: she was the fixer, the middleman. There were very few times that she took one side or another unequivocally.
“Hey, you’re the one who’s late because you were getting lucky,” she said, throwing a teasing smirk over at Kennedy. “I’m ready when you are, sarge. And Hanna’s coming with us, so you have to be nice today.” She grinned over at Hanna and squeezed her leg. “And you totally have no choice. We’ll teach you to be a slayerette.”
Kennedy simply smirked at Aria’s insinuation that she was late because she was getting lucky. The truth was she was, but that wasn’t anyone’s business but hers and Carla’s. She was glad they’d finally worked everything out and were in a really good place. She had a feeling Carla was still upset over the way she’d bailed on the road like she’d done, especially given the way she’d gone off on Willow and tried to kill her when she’d had the rage virus. But for now, things were just good between them and Kennedy was happy. It was hard to believe, given the way things were in the world now, but she was.
“Uh, you can’t be serious. You’re bringing her?” Kennedy said in disbelief, looking over at Hanna. There was no way Aria wasn’t joking. Hanna Marin was a lot of things, but someone who would be interested in training and learning slayer stuff she was most definitely not.
Hanna arched her brow, her jaw clenching at Kennedy’s comment. Everyone always doubted her! No one believed she could do things, but she was totally doing this, if for no other reason than to prove Kennedy wrong. Tipping her chin up defiantly, Hanna smirked, never moving her eyes from Kennedy. “I’m totally in. Let’s do it!”
“Awesome!” Aria slid off the bed and reached out to pull Hanna onto her feet. “You’d be surprised, Kennedy. Hanna can be pretty badass.” She had seen a lot of it in action during their ventures with A. They’d all found a part of themselves they hadn’t really thought had existed during that whole debacle. Now, thankfully, the A bit was over and done with. They were just surrounded by zombies.
“Put on something you can work out in, Han, and we’ll meet you in the gym?” She smiled at the other girl and stepped up toward Kennedy, giving Hanna some privacy to change. “I mean, don’t give her any weapons or anything,” she said lowly, leaning into the older slayer. “But we can teach her some combat stuff, right?” She arched an eyebrow questioningly. She wanted Hanna to learn these things and be safe if she couldn’t be there to watch her back.
Hanna nodded eagerly, the smile lighting up her whole face as she slid of her bunk and started digging for something to put on as Kennedy and Aria left her to get ready. “I’ll be there as fast as I can!” She called out over her shoulder, pulling out some yoga pants and quickly changing into them. This was going to be so fun! If for nothing else than to annoy Kennedy more. She wasn’t sure why she enjoyed pissing her roommate off so much, but hey, it was a zombie apocalypse, what else was she supposed to do? It wasn’t like she could watch TV or go see a movie and Caleb was always off doing wolf stuff, so she had to entertain herself!
“She’s not touching weapons and if you think I’m going easy on her because she’s not a slayer?” Kennedy looked over at Aria as they made their way towards the gym. “Think again. I’m gonna make her work just as hard as I make you work. She better not whine about it either. Just remember…” She said with a smirk. “This was your idea.” Oh yeah, this was gonna be fun.