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[hippie_ninja]

This is Jesus. Leave a message.

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[handleyourshit]

She laughs, a soft sound that seems to get stuck in her throat as she shakes her head.

"I'm okay," she insists, because she genuinely believes she is. She's on her feet, it's behind her, she's not going to die; she can think clearly and she is. She's handling her shit still, for the most part, and the rest is still manageable.

"It was just a lot. I was in Riddler's Square when... whatever it was... hit, is all." Halfway between the Up and the Down, the most heavily trafficked area in the city as far as she knows.

[hippie_ninja]

The metrics they use to measure being 'okay' are different than those used here. He believes she could push on and keep fighting walkers and building a town just fine like this, but they don't have those problems anymore. It means all the things they push aside to keep moving forward have a chance to creep up on them.

And what she's describing is a lot.

"When did you manage to get home?"

[handleyourshit]

It's a lot, but she doesn't linger on it now; there's been enough time that she's figured out how to avoid the worst of it, pull herself up out of the places she still trips. No one who knows her less well than Jesus would probably even notice anything now when she shrugs.

"After." She's still a little unclear on the timeline, and uninterested in thinking about it enough to work it out. "I needed to not be in the city, so I left it for a while."

[hippie_ninja]

"I probably would have needed that, too," he says, which is itself another apology for letting his fear over her wellbeing make him snappish. He hates snapping at people.

[handleyourshit]

If she'd had her phone, she would have texted him, would have answered his calls; but she doesn't, and even walking back here today she feels the buildings, the people walking past her on the street, the little irritants like waiting for the elevator and fending off the manager - angry at the destruction of the chair in the hallway where Carver had retrieved her hidden keys - creeping along her skin like a swarm of insects.

She starts training in two days. She'll punch people she doesn't care about and struggle in a hostile environment and labor under unfair scrutiny and it sounds like exactly what she needs, but right now she's here.

"I was at Broken Hollow, with Jacob, putting some things together for him." She was safe. She's sorry, too. "He wants to go shopping with us. For supplies, but also for Christmas?"

[hippie_ninja]

Christmas. He is surprised at the mention, then chuckles. "I guess I officially celebrate holidays now. Sure. I have no idea where to start in a town that mostly sells dildoes, though."

[handleyourshit]

She sighs, exaggerated.

"So I'm going to have to supervise both of you, is what I'm hearing."

[hippie_ninja]

"Supervise me? I'm going to be on my best behavior. You're a Sin guard now, ma'am." His cop fetish might not extend to her, but it does stoke the mischief in him.

[handleyourshit]

"Are you trying to get hit?" she asks, but there's no teeth to it. She doesn't even have a uniform yet.

"On a scale of one to ten, how good are you at gifts?"

[hippie_ninja]

He frowns. He gives gifts, sometimes at Christmas, but mostly when the mood just strikes him. "I don't know... A six? I've never seen anyone regift anything I've given them."

[handleyourshit]

"That better be a solid six," she warns him, "Because I don't want a dildo."

[hippie_ninja]

"Well." A cheeky grin. "If I can't find anything else, it's the thought that counts, right?"

[handleyourshit]

"No," she states, flatly, "It is not, because you know where my favorite spa is, and you know I like pedicures, and I just explicitly said no dildoes."

[hippie_ninja]

"I won't get you a dildo. I won't get you anything sexy." It would be weird. "I promise."

But he can't promise Jacob won't be nudged toward something funny and sexy on top of a more meaningful gift.

[handleyourshit]

Jacob knows a bit more about what sexy things she might like than Jesus does, if only by virtue of having been the cause of literally any of them. But that's for another time.

Here, now, she holds out her hand, pinky extended. "Make the vow," she says, too seriously.

[hippie_ninja]

He smirks and hooks his pinkie around hers. "I swear, when you open my gift on Christmas morning, it won't be sexual. Which is going to be impressive around here."

[handleyourshit]

"And I swear the same," she answers. "This is binding, you realize. I was a paralegal. I know these things."

[hippie_ninja]

"I've never broken a pinkie promise," he says, absolutely solemn except for the way his eyes are light, playful.

[handleyourshit]

"Good."

Which is when she uses their hooked pinkies to pull him into a hug, wrapping her arm around his shoulders tight.

She's sorry to have worried him. Especially after his other friend disappeared every bit as abruptly.

"What are the chances I can get you to stop worrying about me, short of city wide kidnappings?"

[hippie_ninja]

He sighs into her hair. Now that she's hugged him he's going to hold on for a little while before he lets go. "I don't know. I've had a harder time lately just accepting how things go, just letting people be--I need a project, Ro."

He's going steadily more stir crazy as time goes by.

[handleyourshit]

"I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think it's just... different."

Not needing a project, but just letting things go. Just accepting things the way they both have to back home. These things happen.

Sometimes, they fucking don't have to. She holds him until his arms relax, soaking up the contact. "The land? I have to save up money first, but if you need something, if you and Jacob can get along, maybe you can help with the Hollow."

[hippie_ninja]

If you and Jacob can get along.

Jesus prides himself on being able to get along with anyone, but as he and Rosita have observed, there's tension there on Jacob's side.

"After we go shopping maybe he'll let me. He hasn't...said anything, has he?" That would make her think he really doesn't like Jesus, or won't be able to get along with him.

[handleyourshit]

"I think he's just bad at letting things go," is what she says, shaking her head. No, he hasn't said anything, and she doesn't think there's anything in particular.

"He's the one who brought you up first for shopping. I just agreed."

[hippie_ninja]

"He did?" That's something. That's a very good something to start off with. "I think if he can realize I'm not replacing him with Vrenille we can get off on a better foot. I like him. I'd like to do more with him, he's very good in the field."

[handleyourshit]

"He did," she confirms.

"And that's exactly the issue, I think." Without saying too much, because she knows that regardless of what the actual issue is - as long as it's not something personal, something critical - Jesus is skilled at getting people to like him, and Jacob won't thank her for saying too much either way.

"But he knows we're good survivors. He wants that extra eye on things."