Participants:
| Scene Title | The Ultimate In Team Building |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Too much darkness makes for melancholy, but Jaiden knows how to break it! |
| Date | May 20, 2011 |
Skinny Brickfront, Endgame Safehouse
The last two days Elisabeth has been keeping to herself walking the floors of the safehouse — especially the uppermost floor and the rooftop — with a restless kind of energy. When she does sit still it is usually in the room she and Ygraine are sharing, playing the electronic keyboard that Robyn Quinn gave her to use. She's playing it more than the rest of the occupants may realize — when you can mute the sound so that no one but you hears it playing all night becomes a possibility. Today, though, the restlessness has driven her to a different kind of stress relief. She left a text for Jaiden to let him know where she is when she disappears. She does it anytime she's gone; she doesn't want anyone to worry. The basement of the building is mostly empty except for several very old, beat-up couches that literally came from the dump that she asked him to move down there without explanation.
His explanation comes in visual form. No sound escapes her control so it's only the soft 'thunk' at the far end of the basement that can be heard as she fires the 9mm that she carries with her all the time at the furniture. Finances are not the problem. Obtaining ammunition for this kind of activity could be… and he knows Elisabeth is aware of that. But sometimes violence is the only way to work out thoughts. Hearing footsteps behind her, the blonde says quietly, "Checking up or looking for me in particular?"
Jaiden has stopped asking too many questions regarding items that Elisabeth may need. Couches in the basement? Sure, it did get a bit of a raised eyebrow, but he did as she asked, finding a few shredded abandoned and water soaked examples, dragging them down to the basement and placing them where she asked, on end, presenting a perfect profile for mounting things to or hanging things from to act as targets. When he figured out exactly what was going on, he did find a few things - tin cans, a car door, and a few other bits that would satisfactorily act as targets without fear of ricochet, leaning against a side wall, able to be pulled over when necessary for venting.
He watches quietly from the steps, waiting for her to reload and detect his presence before he approaches the firing line, offering two red boxes of 9mm shells and a clip for her pistol. "No reason to look for you…just checking up. I figured it was something like this, and I also figured that if you were down here, you needed to blow off a little steam and I thought that it best you do so before I came to check on you." He sets the boxes down within reach on another empty wire spool, drawing his own pistol - a matte black .45, and looking downrange, taking a single shot at a can that goes spiraling off into the darkness with a 'ping!', the sound of the shot helpfully edited away by Elisabeth's power. "I'm a big mother hen when those I love are stressed out."
Elisabeth smirks faintly. "Stress is becoming a way of life for me," she admits. "I'm starting to see why Richard always had that line between his eyebrows." She shakes her head and studies the far wall, her hands absently releasing the clip and the slide on her weapon to check it. "I'm starting to think I must have a secondary ability. Maybe Madame Saugnier was right," she quips drily. "A siren song or something." She glances at the ammo boxes he brought down, gratified to see that he brought more for her too, and sets the pistol down to reload her clip while she talks to him.
"When we get a second to breathe, or can get out of the country, we're going. A beach somewhere, just baking in the sun, getting nice and brown. Sleep until we wake up, make love when we want to, eat when we want to." Jaiden sighs softly and rocks his head back and forth, taking aim at another can and firing, his gun silent, the only sound the pinging of the can and the *tink* of the spent cartridge hitting the floor. "Be sure to save your brass when you do this. I'm starting to reload them so we don't have to go out and find too many…it's easier to get gunpowder and primers than it is to get ammunition."
There's a nod to the instruction. "Good to know." She smiles faintly. "Less visible purchase too, I suppose," Elisabeth adds thoughtfully. She finishes reloading the clip but doesn't slap it into the weapon. Instead she leans on the wire spool that's serving as a table and says softly, "Graeme kissed me." There's a note of uncertainty to the tone. Like she doesn't exactly know what to do about it.
Jaiden chuckles softly, putting his pistol back into it's holster beneath his left armpit, snapping it in to make sure it doesn't go anywhere. "Well, you do have a very kissable mouth. Didn't know the guy had any interest in girls, but, to be honest, I do see the attraction."
She rolls her eyes at him, shooting him one of those Looks of Feminine Disdain. "I didn't know he had any interest in girls either," she replies drily. "Considering the first time I met him my gaydar entirely deserted me and I flirted like mad and he was totally oblivious." Elisabeth picks up the pistol and pops the clip into place, pulling the slide to jack a round into the chamber. "I sent him away," she admits, her brow furrowed. She raises the gun and starts shooting toward the cushion she's using as a target. "For his own good." There's a faint smirk. "Besides, I don't know if Aric wants to share, and I doubt Graeme had asked him beforehand," she adds in a smart-ass fashion.
No wasted movement in Elisabeth's loading of her pistol. In goes the clip, back goes the slide, the hammer back, weapon ready to fire. Jaiden watches with arms crossed, nodding, watching the lazy arc of spent shells flying back and bouncing off the clean swept concrete floor. It's odd having a conversation with someone firing a gun three feet from you, yet the place is as quiet as a library. "Honestly, I bet Graeme's as confused as you are right about now. I mean, he lived with Remi for the longest time, and her appetites are legendary around the arts scene. I mean, the one time I visited their apartment, she was lounging in some thin T-shirt and underwear, and Graeme never gave her more than a glance." He chuckles. "You have something she doesn't, apparently."
He nods slightly to her declaration of why she sent him away, understanding. "Best to not let him get more entangled than he already is."
Elisabeth continues to keep her gaze on what she's doing. "I'm like a fucking black widow," she says darkly. "Spinning a web and drawing men in. Convincing them that I know what the hell I'm doing, that we can somehow change it all. Because we already did it once before, right? Only explaining to them that I helped take away this wonderful future that really just required us to let things happen as they happen seems to just make them think all the more highly of me somehow. Because you know…. we did it! That just has to prove that it can be done, and since I've already been in the middle of doing it, clearly I must have some clue." She expends the entire clip, fluff from the cushion flying everywhere on her last three shots beause she's shredded the entire center of it. Lowering the weapon and looking at the space critically, her lips make a moue of disgust. "And so because you all keep believing, I have to too."
She finally looks at him. "And I can't help but wonder all the time what the fuck happens when you see me for what … and who I am. And then I remember Richard saying the same thing to me. Over and over and over. That he's not a hero. Not even a good man. And I wonder if he felt as much of a fraud as I do right now, or felt as much pressure knowing that people who love him were relying on him." Elisabeth blows out a slow breath, her eyes skimming the room. "And then I want to kick myself for whining and crying over spilled milk. Because that's all it is — whining. I got myself into this mess with my eyes wide open. I've made the choices I thought needed making. So … if you ever wonder what the fearless leader's doing when she hides? There you go. She's wallowing in self-pity."
"I follow you because you're not making the easy decisions, Lizzie. You're making the hard ones, that need to be made. You're doing things that a weaker person would run from and hide and sure, you have to spend some time to get your head right now and again, but it proves you're human." Jaiden steps closer, resting a hand on Elisabeth's shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "I never saw this bright future. I don't know what's going to happen - I've only been told of what there might be. And I have to believe that there will be something better than what looks like is on the horizon. I'm too bloody optimistic to think otherwise, and I can't just roll over and let the world roll over me. I see injustice and I fight it. I just never thought I'd be fighting it here and now. But I am. And I'm glad that I'm in the web with you, because going it alone would be bloody difficult." He speaks as she fires, his words punctuating each shot until her gun is empty, the slide locked back with a metallic *click*. Wordlessly he passes her another clip, waiting for her to reload.
"I'm not a hero, Lizzie. You're not a hero. Ygraine isn't one either. It's not something we declare or decide. It's the people who come after us - who are affected by our actions today, that'll call us heroes. You don't think Washington or Martin Luther King thought the same things? If they're doing the right thing? If it would be easier to just roll over and let it happen? They decided, like you did, like I did, that they couldn't just sit back, and they made a decision that changed the world for the better. That's what we're doing now. What you're helping lead."
Taking the clip from him, Elisabeth looks up and murmurs wryly, "But I bet you Lincoln and King weren't fucking more than half the women who followed them." She's really trying to pull her attitude back out of the black pit with a little humor.
"Hey now, you're only fucking a few of us, and I'd bet that, if it weren't for the whole 'being a preacher' thing, King would have been tappin' that all across the south." Jaiden smirks and gives Liz a pat on the backside, stepping back from the firing line and waiting for her to unload again. "And, let's be perfectly honest. It's a hell of a nice fringe benefit that's only extended to those that you're close to. And it's not like I'm a hedonistic sort…mostly."
"The ultimate in team building."
Elisabeth smirks faintly and murmurs as she sets her pistol down on the spool, "The ultimate team building." There's a roll of her eyes. "That is ….. beyond wrong." But it makes her laugh. A lot. She starts chuckling and has to walk away from the guns because it swells up into a full-on belly laugh. So hard that her eyes tear up and she still keeps going. "That's awful," she giggles insanely.
Sometimes it takes something completely off the wall to make your brain stop and go 'WHAT???' to break the ice, and that suitably did it. Jaiden presses the point. "I mean, think about it. When we're done, a nice long retreat that ends in an orgy. Congratulations, team! We've freed the evolved from the oppression of the government. Whoever comes first loses. Let's fuck!" He laughs too, shaking his head, unable to press it any more, leaning against the 'table, watching her laugh, unable to keep from smiling.
By now she has walked to the far wall and sunk down to sit at the base of it, her head tipped back against it. Elisabeth is almost literally howling with laughter, the tears running down her face freely, her arms wrapped around her waist as if to hold her together. It's full-bore catharsis. She gasps, unable to catch her breath, starts to say something else, and then continues to laugh like mad.
Jaiden laughs along with her, deep, heavy laughter, starting somewhere around his pelvis and working it's way out in a heavy belly laugh. He rocks back on his backside, feet coming off the floor for a moment before he rocks up to his feet, walking over to where Elisabeth is laughing, his own melding with hers. With his shoulders still shaking, he dips down and lifts the blonde into his arms, still laughing.
Elisabeth lets him haul her up, still chuckling, and wraps her arms around his shoulders to bury her face there. "When this is over…. I'm going to go to Tahiti," she murmurs softly. "I'm going to sit on that beach all night, every night until sunrise waiting for time to catch up. Because that will be the only rest I will probably ever get."
We'll rest when we're through. It will never be through. But she will continue to hug the hope that Joshua himself embodies for her to her heart, the hope of the life she wants for her children if they are ever born and the children of her friends. She has to believe or it's all been for nothing.
"All right," Elisabeth finally says, catching her breath on another chuckle. "Now that, I needed. Thank you." Her grin is quite a bit more cheerful.