trans_9 | An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

She thought her life would be different by now, but she's a prisoner again. Voluntary, she guesses, which makes it a little bit different than the first time. At least she can blink on her own this time. Not that she's using her body to do much good.

Ironically, she almost always looked better when she was a more total prisoner. Without her makeup and hair clips and changes of clothes to arrange herself into some approximation of health, without even a mirror to confirm her suspicions, she looks a wreck. Dark circles line her reddened eyes; her hair is unbrushed and falls in tangled clumps over her face; chapped, bloodied lips and fingernails bitten down to the flesh speak to her uneasy transition back into captivity.

Eva's given up all attempts to look 'okay'. She ripped a man's face open with her bare fingers. She's been a long road away from 'okay' for a while now, but she spent too long mistaking her anger and stubbornness for strength and resilience to recognize it. She's wised up now.

She really wants a drink right now. Instead she has some books - selected poems by Pablo Neruda and an anthology of poetry by women poets in the Andes - and a pillow and blanket. She's curled up on the cot with the former book in her hand, but drifting in and out of sleep. Her breath comes lazy and heavy as she alternately reads, dreams, and watches the door to the brig with heavy-lidded eyes, looking for nothing.

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"Hn." Tim nods slightly, partially in thought. That advancement had, admittedly concerned him for that reason-- but still, he couldn't approve of Stacy's punishments, either, so there was that. "We're fortunate that the majority of the aggression gets focused outward, then," he comments. He supposed that having a common enemy helped a great deal in that regard.

Eva falls a bit quiet at that. "Yes, I suppose so."

Funny, aggression getting focused outwards is why she's here. Too much aggression, focused at the wrong people. She pretends to go back to reading.

Tim frowns at that reaction. Logically, it must have something to do with her reason for being there, but it'd be unprofessional of him to pry, considering the nature of the situation.

"At least you're keeping yourself busy while you're in there," he comments idly, but he'll otherwise let the conversation drop-- she doesn't seem to be in the mood to open up any further, so he's more than willing to back off and continue with his work.

"Not busy enough. I hate idleness, and honestly I've read this Neruda so many times I'm starting to expect it's tattooed on my brain." She puts the book down and crosses her arms. "It feels like I've already served more than my two weeks."

The noise Tim gives in response is a little like a forced laugh at that. "I'm sure someone would be willing to bring you a wider variety of reading material, if you wanted to expand a little bit."

"Someone's going to need to transport a whole library in here, if I've got another ten days here. That's two hundred and forty hours to fill, and I can only sleep so often," she says, making a dramatic fainting gesture and sinking back into the cot.

"That might take a bit more work then a few books," he comments idly, raising an eyebrow at her. "Though really you could use that time to catch up on sleep. You could cut it down to closer to one hundred and sixty." Not that he was one to talk.

"Ugh, I've already slept so much my eyes fused shut and my ribs started throbbing." She wrings her hands together. "I hate being useless like this. I can't even be cleaning up after the children. Just sitting here in a jail cell, eating up resources and wasting time."

"I understand the discomfort," Tim sympathised, frowning. The inability to do something to help-- that was an experience he certainly didn't want to deal with. "Unfortunately there's not much we can do about that, until your time in here is up."

"Mmm." She harrumphs and folds her arms. "You wouldn't happen to have a nail file I can use to carve tallymarks into the walls, would you? You look like you might be packing some gadgets in that costume."

"I might," Tim replied incredulously. Not a nail file per se, but still. "I feel like I shouldn't condone defacing the brig, though."

"Don't consider it defacing. Consider it reupholstering. This place could use some interior design, and my tallymark handwriting is beautiful."

"Well in that light," Tim begins. Then, in a more serious tone, "Unfortunately you'll have to convince someone else. 'Nail file' isn't in my list of 'gadgets'."

"Oh, then what good are you, Red Robin? I was hoping you'd be a useful tool dispenser." She's enjoying teasing. It keeps her mind off things. Mostly.

"I have plenty of useful tools. Just not a nail file," he intoned dryly, doing an incredulous expression that probably didn't translate well onto his mostly covered face.

"So, what, a grappling hook gun or something? Ooh, or one of those watches that conceals a garrote?"

"Grapnels are pretty standard fair for crime fighting," Tim replies easily. And he wasn't going to talk weapons, one way or another.

An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

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