sixthiterationlogs | i'll have you know cockroaches make extremely loyal and durable pets

Sleep has always been a bit of a dodgy prospect for Sirius, given as he was at an early age to being up at all hours, but it's been well off the rails since he came through the fountain. Sometimes, he feels he can't get enough sleep, days at a time only leaving his bed to take a piss; others, he finds himself awake and restless when everyone remotely sensible has gone to bed, a more familiar affliction that finds him wandering the empty streets at night like some kind of burglar casing houses, a plume of smoke trailing behind him.

Tonight, he's found himself back at the bridge, alone but for the few stars peeking through the rolling clouds, the water rushing endlessly beneath his feet as he leans forward, arms braced against the railing and the end of his cigarette flaring orange as he pulls in a drag.

This late, even with the other night owls like her out, it doesn't get crowded. Jess isn't drive out of 6I by anything other than boredom. After the first couple of weeks, the eeriness of the empty spaces dissipates and she finds herself walking through them in warmth. Obviously, she'd prefer eerie. Otherwise, she's acclimating and she can't have that. She won't have that.

The mildest curiosity might be driving her to the bridge too, piqued by the lambent orange plume and the sharp odour wafting her way. It's not pot, which everyone seems to be cool about here. To her knowledge, she hasn't come across any tobacco plants, but uh. She has no fucking clue what those look like. But in what universe is it easier to find cigarettes than booze? If anything, they should go hand in hand. Jess has a pull from her 2/3rds empty whiskey bottle and trudges up to the bridge, breaking a stream of smoke like a relay runner at the finish line.

"Make those?" she asks with a nod to the guy's smoke.

The solid thump of boots on wooden planks reaches Sirius long before their owner does, and he cuts her a calm, if mildly curious look from over the ember of his cigarette.

"These," he says, pulling the cigarette from his lips and holding it up between two fingers, "are courtesy our invisible overlords. Apparently I was a good boy."

After a tick, he nods to the bottle, more precious than smokes as far as he's been able to tell. "And that?"

Sam's still looked less like something from the Miller Lite factory and more like a Rube Goldberg Mouse Trap contraption. Even more so, following the earthquake. A few of her favorite decanters and flasks had shattered. Sam had had to improvise, so nothing quite fit together right.

Didn't matter, though.

The important part was that it still (ha ha) produced vodka. Admittedly, some of it was more like potato water and some of it was more like the chemical solution you used to clean silverware.

At least, that's what Sam could tell from sniffing it. She was super pissed that she couldn't drink any more.

But there were a lot of other people who needed the booze. And Sam couldn't contribute much else to the clown rodeo. So she was doing her best to get the yield high and strong, humming Under the Bridge by the Red Hot Chili Peppers while she worked.

Huh, so that's what that thing is. Jess should've caught the whiff of whiskey from it even all the way across the room, which means a certain sharpness of her senses has deserted her along with her regular roster of powers. Jess pops her head in and observes long enough to confirm: That's a still and that's Sam. Who is too harsh on herself, if Jess recalls the underwear model comment. That she does is further proof of how badly she needs a drink.

Without interrupting her or introducing herself prematurely, Jess ducks back out and heads to the storeroom to grab an outfit (shirt, jeans) she thinks will fit. Nobody else is using them and there's still like eight pairs left it's fine. The folding of them comes apart a bit in Jess's hands and sprawl even more as she chucks them onto the counter and tosses in a "hey" and then, for further clarification, "Jess. The alcoholic from the network."

Wonder Warden.

Sam remembered the name from the network. And was relieved to put a new face to it. She was good at observing people. Mostly in her failures to interact. That she'd missed a whole person's name was worrisome. Fortunately, this was definitely a newbie.

"Hey," she said, lifting her chin slightly. Sam had a Midwestern accent, although it was tinged with the faintest hints of something west coast. She'd been in LA what? Three, four years?

Who could keep track of time in this shit show?

Without further ceremony, Sam walked to the spout of her still and grabbed the bottle at the base, half-filled with a vaguely murky liquid. Sniffing it nearly lit the hairs in Sam's nose on fire.

She hoped she didn't kill Jessica.

"Here," she said, offering her the bottle. "Silveware polish, as promised."

Twilight Something. It's on the tip of her brain but she lets it get away, eying the stream of filthy amber pouring til it runs dry. Her nose is of less use to her every day so goes right for a sip after accepting the bottle. A small, sputtering sip, some spat back into the narrow neck and some dribbling down the sides as she covers her mouth with her hand and forces herself to swallow before she resumes coughing.

"Jes- us," she hisses out, "Christ." The bottle is set on the counter, along with the heels of Jess's palms. She hangs her head, shoulders rattling with quiet coughs she refuses to let past her lips. She sniffs hard, her nose starting to run again, and lifts her head, partially recuperated. "What'd you distill that from, railroad spikes?"

It was really a shame Sam didn't have a webcam. Or a phone. It would have made one hell of a YouTube channel, recording people's reactions to her moonshine vodka.

But then again, as long as she was wishing for things, she kind of wished for a big door with a neon sign that said 'Exit.'

That would be fucking awesome.

She smiled mildly, the sort of smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, and gave a shrug. "Just potatoes, yeast, and water," she said. "And a lot of ghetto, jacked up siphoning with this." She gestured to her still, with a small measure of pride, in spite of herself. "I did warn you about the first batch."

She'd say she's not complaining but she just did. It's still better than nothing, and nothing is better than mouthwash, and Jess wasn't kidding about getting desperate.

"Keep it coming," she strains to sound game, or encouraging, or less like a lightweight piece of crap. After ironing her breath out, Jess has a second quick, harsh sip, which goes down much smoother. Presumably because her tastebuds were singed dead in the liquid wildfire of her first swig. "Actually, keep a tab open for me and my wrecking ball's on call."

"As long as I have the ingredients, I whip up a few batches every week," Sam replied gamely, putting herself to work on the next batch as spoke. As far as science went, it was a little tedious, but it was better than nothing. And it wasn't like she was good for plowing fields or hunting Bambi in the forest. "We're pretty much a barter culture around here."

Wow. She'd said 'we.' That was new.

Fuck, herself from a year ago wouldn't recognize who she'd become. That was probably a good thing, but Sam wasn't entirely sold.

"Although I'd love to hear more about this 'wrecking ball.'"

Frank isn't really sure how long he and Kira had been in the cellar, but when he emerges it's been long enough that his eyes squint against the light upstairs. At least the power stayed on through all that. And he realizes the only thing he wants now is a goddamn cup of coffee. The supply is limited, but he thinks he earned one tonight, milling through people and keeping an eye out for a familiar blonde. For once, Karen's nowhere in sight so he walks by everyone else. Kira had taken up his social capacity for the evening anyway. It's a blessing when the kitchen is empty and he beelines for the pot. He touches it with near reverence before drawing down the grounds from the cupboard and then setting water to boil on the stove that he lights with practiced efficacy. After Reims, old-school appliances don't even really register as an inconvenience, though he's realizing he might want to rig up his house with power even if that doesn't bother him all that much either.

He hops up onto the counter to wait since a watched pot never boils or so his mama always used to say. He's pretty sure Maria said it too. Picking a spot on the doorframe to stare at, he tries to focus on it without thinking about all the ways he's already fucking up here. His intoxicated gaze wavers and he has to blink through several times and try again, and again, but it's just making him tired. Frank crosses his arms and his legs at his ankles and redoubles his efforts to stay alert until he can get some caffeine into his system. What he couldn't anticipate was the one jolt he needs walking through the doorway he's mean-mugging.

Jessica. He immediately turns away before their eyes can lock, hands dangling uselessly from their sockets until he can place them on the counter too. Half-expecting her to see him and just turn right back around again and walk out, he almost doesn't bother addressing her. But he's not abandoning his coffee, and he'd never actually succeeded in ignoring her in his life, so. Here goes absolutely something that he's sure he hates already.

"I'm not here," he insists, allowing her the autonomy she needs to get whatever she came in here for and back out again without the whole dance, if that's what she wants.

Jess has the hours of the Inn down pat. It's always open but at certain times, practically deserted, when everyone is being productive or asleep. That latter is safer to bank on but she's still taking a chance, hitting the kitchen without Sam around. It's barely stealing if she's just nipping some from the last batch, of which they must keep a jug handy. Plus, despite how rocky a rollback it's been, she's enjoying life as a lightweight, so she won't be taking much. In three weeks, people can start worrying.

Her first thought upon colliding with Frank's sliding-glass-door-like stare is that all her prior rationalizing has been anticipated and he's rooted there as a deterrent. But even she knows that's the kind of paranoia that makes a person genuinely crazy. It's a small village and she's had no cause to think he sleeps well or according to a routine. They're not the only people awake in the Inn, currently, including people she's not used to seeing so long after dark. Folks shaken up by the earthquake, she figures. And if any of them wander in, it's not like getting caught colluding in Reims. She doesn't have to wonder relentlessly at that person's whereabouts for the next 24 hours, who they may talk to, who they've already heard speak.

Reminding herself of that is a hassle, though. Illuminates how little she reminds herself of it when he's not around. No way she's unpacking that.

"Good," she remarks, sparing his pot a glance and crossing to the refrigerator. Not that it's where here bottle is, back at her house, or that she knows if moonshine is even "good" cold, or if it chemically falls apart or something. "Neither am I." And neither is what she's looking for, once she's got the door open. Frick. Her arm rests on the open door, power draining as she drinks in the cold and searches the kitchen with a swivel of her head. All the cupboards look the same. Grinding her teeth, she supposes she'll just have to scour them one by one, and swings the door closed.

He can guess what she's looking for, but it doesn't matter to him, not really. Not with that bourbon still making him pleasantly hazy hours later - maybe she isn't the only newly-discovered lightweight. Frank's head tips back against the cupboard behind him, telling himself he just has to wait til she finds her booze, then she'll leave and everything will be fine again. Well, no, it'll suck still just in a different way. When Jess doesn't find what she's looking for right away, though, he feels her frustration as his own, eyes trailing after her as she opens up every corner of the kitchen to find what she needs.

Giving a cursory glance to his pot, he realizes it's almost there. Coffee is in his near future and that can't ever be a bad thing, really. Even if suddenly he's not in a rush to sober up himself. "I'm not here so I can't witness you not be here, either," he points out, as petulantly as ever. He's barely moved an inch since she came in, though now his leg swings idly, internally wishing the next cupboard will be the one she finds that awful vodka in and absconds with it already.

How did she miss his slurred words when she first walked in? Or put it together from his juvenile sprawl on the countertop. Frank's been punishing a bottle, one he doesn't have the decency to have on his person. If she got closer, she might be able to suss out by scent if he got into the moonshine or found something else to knock back -- all other things being equal. They aren't: She's basically without her sense of smell most of the time. She's over it to the point that she doubts the rain nor her sinuses will ever clear up.

Because it's preferable to playing at an accomplice relationship like they couldn't escape previously, Jess suggests, "I'm just some drunk hallucination."

She starts swinging cupboard doors open, starting with the ones closest to the fridge. Jess lifts herself onto her toes in an effort to see over the wall of cans lining the shelf, see if maybe they're hiding anything, but they don't seem to and she can't be bothered to get a stool.

That's where she's wrong, if only because Kira had abandoned the rest of the bourbon with Frank so he could go have A Feeling elsewhere. Aurora the black shepherd picks that time to come back into the room, butting her head into Jess' knee playfully since Kira had also left the dog behind with Frank, something that's becoming startlingly regular. Frank sighs and hops down off the counter, only stumbling a little as he turns to peer into his water to see if it's boiling yet, likely leaning a little too close.

"Usually my hallucinations are nicer to me," he points out even as the move jostles the bottle in his jacket pocket with a soft clink against his belt. Welp, busted.

Jess scoffs, audibly doubting that, but she gets what he means. Her cruelty is one hundred percent personal touch at this point.

"When I leave without your booze, you can figure out how nice I was."

At the dog, she mutters incoherently about dumb mutts with seemingly no choice but to orbit their dumb mutt king. Instead of psychic kids from broken homes, Sixth has dogs of dubious moral origins. It's an improvement in about every way though she still wouldn't want any following her home.

She shoves gently at the dog's muzzle with her palm, the dog coaxing a pet out of her, then another as Jess strokes her head and neck properly. She ruffles the fur again before resuming her search. More dry goods and rows of herbs in jars, but she has to be close-ish.

He hides a smile with his back turned, hearing the attention Jessica deals Aurora behind him. The scoff is well-met, his hallucinations are usually much meaner than she could ever aspire to be, truthfully. But he just wants to be petty while he has the liquid courage to be. Frank just takes the bottle out, unlabeled but undeniably what it is, and sets it on the counter where she can reach it without having to take it from his fingers. He wasn't going to drink anymore anyway.

"Just take it," he mutters, taking his water off the flame and pouring it into the coffee pot set down in the sink. It probably would have made the coffee taste even better, but hindsight is 20/20 after all. And if he has to listen to her scraping around in here for however long it takes to find the dregs of Sam's concoction that he's 90% someone else already stole, he might actually lose what little of his mind he's managed to hold onto.

She's not desperate enough to accept handouts and boy how she wishes that felt like one. Debt that simple would be easy to track; what they've accrued between them would choke out even the hungriest Wall Street wolf. Jess is done apologizing for the things she had him do, and he's forgiven her if not in so many words, but as for forgiving herself... Whatever. He's practically evidence that it doesn't work and it isn't worth it when it does -- anything you work for can and will go away again.

Conceding, the cupboard clatters shut and she turns to head his bottle's way. "Only because I don't need the competition if you go forming a habit," she establishes with an inflexible stare, scoops the bourbon up by the neck and slips it into her bag. She can appreciate him finally learning from her many examples of Love Nothing, as long as he respects the queen. First come, first served.

The dog, having trotted after her, pokes at the back of her knee with its nose. Softly nudging her head away, Jess says goodbye to the little pest, since nobody else is there, and makes her exit. And she didn't almost accidentally force bubble anyone. Achievement unlocked, but for whom.

It very nearly gets an eyeroll, but even that is too much effort for whatever is still between them. Not enough to get her to stick around for more than a minute, that much is for sure. Frank watches her take the booze, predictably, and turns the full brunt of his attention back to his task. If himself and Jessica have to share this place, he'd rather avoid having this same interaction over and over again. Maybe she blames him for everything, the way it went down. He wouldn't put it past her, though he didn't actually know another way at the time. Frank has to be done blaming himself for Reims. He has to be done with Reims or he'll never exist as a semblance of a whole person at all. He touches at his bracelet and heaves out a soft sigh. That's two people who walked away from his bullshit tonight, and for once he thought he was being downright tolerable.

He's just going to have to try harder to fly under the radar, he supposes. As much as it hurts every time he sees Jess, like the cavity in his chest opening afresh, Frank doesn't think he can survive another one of these "chats." So he makes a resolution to himself to vacate whatever space she's in if this happens again. To forgo pride and I-was-here-firsts and just put his own needs first. It's what she would have wanted for him once, he remembers their first argument on the very first rainday. If he could draw a big line through the center of town and tell them each to keep their sides, he would. For now, he'll just have to resolve not to allow it to happen again.

Kamala can't help herself. She came this way to do something useful. Damn it she's going to be useful. Her idea of it is cleaning debris outside the Inn to make sure people can get inside safely. It is a very noble endeavor until one remembers she can't heal from injuries coming from whatever may fall on her while doing this. Is that stopping her? Well she's walking outside with Jessica, isn't she?

Jessica with her awesome new power that is going to almost kill her. What is her luck these days? She's screaming dodge! in her head and against all odds she manages not to get hurt by doing just that. "Does everyone have an awesome superpower, but me?!" It is worth noting that she is inadvertently using her ability right now. Nothing can hurt her for the next ten minutes. Kamala just can't tell due to the rain poncho Owen gave her paired off with the fact she did avoid getting hit.

Yeah, so awesome. Despite her relief that Kamala appears unharmed, Jess takes a small, conscientious step back. She's pieced together what it is that turns her power on and off and that the mastery of it may evade her for a good long while. Giving it away would be more useful than keeping it for herself, since it can't be shared and Jess considers herself pretty resilient, but the gift would seem to be hers and hers alone. Sixth verse, same as the first.

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Rhetorical. Jess bends to pick up the larger and sharper chunks of shingles, unaware that Kamala's power is shareable and toughening her skin against scratches and cuts.

"Because force fields are a great power!" Kamala retorts as she gets back up. She's joining in on picking this stuff up. She still doesn't make the connection this is weirdly not hurting in any way. How someone can be so smart and oblivious at the same time is anyone's guess. Adrenaline probably explains a lot.

Since when? Jess forgot they were even a pseudo-possibility, that there might be someone out there like her except they woke up a bubble. Some of the A-Team might be able to generate shields from rainbow space energy but that's nobody's main or whole deal, as far as she knows. It doesn't stop anyone else from getting hurt, so Jess cautions, "Watch your hands," as she starts to question why hers are holding up. She got a frickin' paper cut the other day. Now her palms are covered in mud and grime and despite her careful placement of the pieces, there are jagged edges pushing into her flesh.

"Or don't." She looks over at Kamala's hands, then back to her own as she gently closes her fingers around the sharp debris. Nothing, no pain anyway, and no blood, even with a curious squeeze. Sadly, the shingles crumble a little but don't shatter, meaning her strength isn't returning, so this probably isn't her durability coming back.

i'll have you know cockroaches make extremely loyal and durable pets

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Inn Kitchen

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