trans_9 | Katzenjammer [Open]

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Katzenjammer [Open]

Aside from the comatose state she reached after Cassie finished her post-exorcism first-aid, sleep hasn't come easily to Eva since the possession. What little she's gotten has been interspersed with nightmares, so it's while all the Animorphs are sleeping that she slips out of Cassie's house and finds herself at the Drunken Dragon.

It's all too much. Too much going through her head and too much space alone in there. When she woke up it was because she was thrashing in her sleep and accidentally smacked her head into the bedpost. She found that she was clawing at her scalp while she dreamed.

She needs to feel a little bit out of control again, by her own doing, because that means less control that other people can take away from her. And she needs to dull the knowledge of how many bad memories she dredged up for Marco by going and getting herself possessed.

"Wine. Whatever you have. Keep it coming," she says, then, as if clarification is necessary, "I'm going to get drunk."

(( OOC: Open post but since Eva's going to be bemoaning the state of everything everywhere, please poke me first if you want to throw a character she's never met before at her. ))

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He hadn't seen her in weeks. It hadn't been an intentional avoidance, but...it was easier, with Sam and Dean. With Kaylee. It was easier to forget and just be for a little while.

There was something almost intoxicating about that.

But he'd been keeping track of things, and if there was one person who was likely to react badly to be possessed (aside from everyone) it would be Eva.

"...Eva?" He hovered, just a few steps away from the table, ready to go if she didn't want to talk.

Eva wouldn't blame Tom. It's easier to forget how much you've lost, of your world and of yourself, when you're not surrounded by people who are ever-present reminders. She'd be avoiding herself, were it possible.

She glances up from burying a longing stare in her jug. "Tom!" She smiles and pats the seat next to her. "Keep me company. I've been having one hell of a bad hair day."

It's an understatement, and her light-hearted veneer is paper thin. The bruise on her face is angry now and even though she's tied a bit of a bow into the bandage on her neck, the welt peeking out is red and ugly. Oddly enough, her smile looks as tentative and fleeting as Tom's usually does.

"Keep you company?" He settled after a moment, looking her over. Hair didn't look so bad, but everything else... "I think your hair looks fine. Are you ok, Eva? Physically?"

Mentally wasn't something they needed to discuss. They already knew where that stood, talking about it was unnecessary.

For once, the weak smile was missing from his face, concern overriding his automatic response.

"Physically? I earned myself a nice welt to complement the portable Kandrona scars, and this," she points to the bruise, "I got because I'm graceful enough to punch a bedframe with my face."

"But otherwise I'm alright, Tom," she says as she tries to reassure him with a gentle touch to the hand. She takes a drink. "But if you're planning on keeping an old woman company you may as well order something to nurse."

"Really?" His face softened, glancing at her neck. Glad he had never been forced into one of the collars, though he didn't feel like opening that conversation. Being held down at least made you feel like there was a chance. Like there was something to fight against. Like you might get away. The collar didn't even give you that.

"I'm glad you're ok. I was worried. Lots of people I like got involved in that whole thing."

He glanced at the jug. "I'm not old enough to drink, Eva. Not for a few more years, what would my mom say?"

"Really. It turns out wood is harder than my face. Who knew?" Still, the portable Kandrona collars are fairly high up on the list of things she doesn't miss about the war. Just when she'd thought Edriss couldn't make her life any more miserable, she'd had to switch being cramped up in a cage with other hosts for being stooped over a pool alone for hours. "I'm sorry the darksoul was so ubiquitous."

The mention of Jean stirs a deep sadness in Eva's core, because suddenly all she can think about is how Jean didn't get to see her Tom come home from the war, how everyone else got to come back from the dead but not Tom, or Rachel. And now he's here sitting in a tavern with an old family friend, and Jean must still be mourning, or have been mourning, somewhere in her own time. She takes another drink, using the jug to hide her face until she can manage her expression. "Your mother trusts my judgment. Though she probably shouldn't."

"You shouldn't try to test those things. Some things the universe just won't let you change." The pool itself had been a nightmare, the thought of losing those few moments when he could do whatever made him shiver. "It's not your fault. I just worry, you know? You always worry when people you care about might get hurt."

He didn't know her thoughts. Didn't know that there was a world out there where he hadn't managed to come home to his mom and dad. "My mother trusts my judgment, and she really shouldn't do that either." He smiled, eyes pained. Missing her. Missing his dad. "I guess everyone drinks before they're of age, huh? Suggestions? I wouldn't even know where to start."

"Well, here I am, safe and sound and barely the worse for wear. Hopefully everyone else you were worried about is too." It's not her fault, and it's not as if she even feels exceptionally blameworthy, and yet there's still that nagging guilt that she won't ever be a worthwhile re-entry to freedom if all she does it get captured and act damaged.

She smiles, happy for the subject to change. "You're of age where I'm from. You should get some of the wine, you probably won't like the vodka. I never did."

"Hope so. It'd be nice if it worked out like that, huh?" He understood the guilt, he understood the hesitation to trust that maybe there was something aside from just being a body waiting for someone else to take control.

He woke up every morning and had to remind himself that he could move his hands.

"Am I? Sheesh, that's weird to think of." But he got up, going to the bar to retrieve the drink before sitting back down and sipping at it cautiously.

"Well, you know what they say about the devil in the details. The big picture is that no one's dead, no one's still possessed and that thing is contained." She keeps drumming her fingers against the side of her jug. Perpetual motion machine, that's her, trapped by fear that keeps her from staying still and the movements that remind her of what happened with every twitch and rhythm.

She smiles at that, and resists the urge to remind him that she's known him since he was a toddler because he should just be trying to be himself, not an approximation of people's memories of him. "Yes, well, I could tell you that the teenagers in Chile are more responsible, but that would be a lie. I'll make sure you don't kill too many braincells."

"Yeah, true. I guess that's the best ending we can hope for." He sighed, looking at his hands. It never seemed like enough. There always seemed like maybe he should have been able to do more.

But all he could do was the best he could to help his friends.

Pretending is really the only thing he can think of to do. When he stopped pretending, remembering to move got harder and harder. "Thanks, I don't have too many to waste. Need all the help I can get keeping them around."

Because she knew him, so he had to pretend that everything was ok. She had known him, known him almost as well as his mom did. Had to pretend. The wine tasted strange and tart on his tongue, almost too sweet.

"Actually, the best ending we can hope for is a time machine to erase the whole thing, but that's just begging for a paradox." She puts her jug down and takes one of his hands in hers. "Don't worry, you've got plenty. I wouldn't be talking to you if you weren't a little smart. I have standards, after all."

She's pretending too, coasting on wry remarks and avoidance, because he's a kid, and he knows her, and kids need her to be strong and impervious to show them that things can get better and return to the way they were, that if you put your mind to it you don't have to break. Marco needs it, Katara and Sandy need it, certainly Tom must need it. She does a fairly winning approximation of her old self, if you ignore the fidgeting and the way her eyes keep going distant. "You develop a taste for it. Have to start somewhere. But you're drinking too much at a time, just take a little half-spoonful at first."

She promptly contradicts her own words by taking a large gulp of her own.

"That sounds difficult. Though, I bet around here we can find a guy with a time machine." He gave her hand a return squeeze, lacing their fingers together briefly. Sometimes, the automatic response to reach out and hold someone made him feel younger than the need to be held. He should be around eighteen, he thought maybe. It had been, or felt, like longer than the five months between him and that looming birthday. But he didn't feel any different. Maybe he should worry about that.

If nothing else, the Yeerks had taught them the art of playing a role.

He smiled softly. "So you'll let me know when my IQ level falls bellow the allowable range?" But he took smaller sips.

"You can find talking hammers and beer trees around here. I bet you could pick up a time machine at the drugstore." And wouldn't that be nice, but if sci-fi b-movies have taught her anything it's that playing with time is just begging for problems. Not like that supposedly stopped the Animorphs, but it didn't seem to be something they ever wanted to revisit either.

"I'd be a horrible friend if I didn't. Don't worry, I'll keep you from doing anything stupid. You won't drink too much to get home safely." Well, as homes are aboard Stacy.

"Talking books, too. The ship scooped up enough insanity to make my head hurt. Do we have a drug store?" He didn't think it would work. As much as there were events in his life he'd like to change, everything had a bad habit of water-falling. Getting worse if you tried to change one thing.

Time paradoxes seemed like the least of his worries.

"Or one who needed some new entertainment in her life, one of the two." He smiled into the glass, watching Eva. It was strange to think of her as a friend, and not practicly an aunt.

But the thought of going home made him smile, a real one this time, not the slightly forced wisp. It looked different now than it had when he was younger, more careworn and tired, but it gleamed in his eyes.

"We have the Great Wall of China. I'm not sure if we have a drugstore, but I wouldn't be shocked if we did. Or if it sold time machines." She smiles back, happy to see something on his face that genuine and less-scared. It's good to see. She worries about him more than anyone else on the ship besides Marco.

"Oh come on, don't you trust me? Besides, I don't have a camera, or letting you go do stupid things might seem much more tempting."

"Time machines and old gum. Sounds like just the sort of gig this place needs. I didn't know we had the Great Wall." Everything felt scared and sideways lately. Being infested was hard, figuring out what to do after who you were after being infested seemed like it was going to be even harder.

"Right, so we make sure you don't run into any film on any of the planets we stop at and we're all fine?"

"You know, we could run a place like that, the two of us. Start a little metro-mart with odd thises and thats inside an abandoned building. I'm sure there's some place in The City that would do." Besides, anything that gives them something to do, some way to feel valuable, can only be a good thing unless it's taken away.

"I think there are plenty of things besides film that would prevent us from being fine," she says a bit darkly, taking another drink.

"We probably could, but getting stock in sounds like it would be a pain. We don't really stop that often. Maybe if we ever make it back or something."

In Tom's experience, anything that could make you feel valuable could all too easily be ripped away without a second thought.

Or even be forced to rip it away yourself. His hands had come too close to taking everything away from him.

He lips twitched, an automatic response that said he should smile, even if she hadn't said anything funny. "Yeah, well. I think we're all a fair mark from 'fine' anyway. But hey, baby steps, right?" He didn't sound hopeful, free hand drumming against the table unconsciously and taking another too large drink of his wine.

"Well, there has to be stuff in the unexplored areas of The City. We'd be doing everyone a favor to localize it all, organize it, make it easy to find..." She takes a contemplative sip. It's easy to plan things when drunk - you don't have to think about all the little hitches in the plan, just the possibilities.

"We'll be fine. We always are," she says, as much for herself as Tom. 'Fine' is relative anyway, and defined broadly enough, it can include two shell-shocked, scared people distanced from themselves. She glances down at his hand, at her own drumming a four-four beat. "You could at least try to match my rhythm, you know."

"Probably, I mean if the Great Wall is hanging around, surely someone missed a Quickie Mart. Or a Costco...man, Costco. That sounds like fun and I used to hate shopping." Strange how thing that used to be such minor irritations of daily life could become things you missed.

"Yeah." Maybe she was fine, he still didn't feel fine. And he wasn't sure if 'always' even applied in the context of the conversation, but he tried to smile to confirm her statement.

It failed when he noticed his hand, squeezing his fingers into a fist to stop the motion. "Sorry, I didn't realize I was doing it."

"I would kill for a Costco. Although when I was younger they were called Price Clubs. At one point we bought a larger fridge just because the benefits of buying frozen goods in bulk there outweighed the cost of an upgrade." How odd it is that completely banal conversations seem so comforting in this strange life of theirs.

She's not fine. She's fidgety and scared and feels rotten throughout with how much trouble she's caused everyone today. And that bruise on her face hurts. But the longer you pretend the easier it gets to believe the lie.

"Oh, no, sweetie, I was teasing. Tap away to your heart's content. We could make a nice percussion section together."

"Mom used to go once a month. Get pounds and pounds of frozen stuff. Kept it in the fridge in the garage. When we were smaller, Jake and I used to love going with her and eating all the free samples. It was like a game, running between the stations to see who got there first." He stared into the glass, enjoying the absolute nothing of the conversation.

But she could pretend better than he could, at least. He still had to learn how to lie again.

"No...it's ok...sorry." He dropped his hand to his lap, keeping his fingers folded into a fist. "I didn't realize I was doing it."

"Your mother and I used to go together some weekends, when we'd leave you with Peter or your father. It gave us an excuse to get out of the house. Our little refuge from cartoons and peanut butter sandwiches and watching the same Disney movie for the five hundredth time." There's heavy nostalgia and longing in her voice. It feels like an entirely different life, starring some entirely different person who just happens to share the same face and some of the same traits. But then, they know all about sharing faces with other people. Eva only saw Edriss as a slug a handful of times. "I swear the score for The Fox and the Hound haunted my dreams for half a year."

"Tom, have I ever asked you to apologize to me for anything? Don't start now." She shakes her head. "I never realize when I'm doing it either. I only realize when I stop it."

"Yeah. And Peter was bad at making sure Jake and Marco didn't get into everything. One time, I think they were like four, they smeared an entire bowl of pudding all over the fridge. I think he was laughing too hard to be mad at them. You two almost made it home before he got it cleaned up." He smiled, chewing briefly on his lip. "I think there are worse things to get stuck in your head."

He regretted the word choice almost as soon as they slipped out, ducking his head and closing his eyes.

"No, just...I hate losing track of myself. It's distracting. And disturbing. I don't think I used to do it, but I can't remember anymore if I didn't or it's just paranoia."

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[between Katara and the Doctor temporally, so sorta drunk]

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