[Open]

[strings_theory]

Who: Jolyne and open
When: Sometime in October
Where: Various places on campus
What: Dancing, mechanics, other shenanigans
Warnings: It's Jolyne, so the normal

A. Dancing, the quad as usual

[Anyone that saw last month's nonsense might find this a familiar scenario once again. Just Jolyne posting up in a corner with Stone Free standing not far from a music player and holding onto a water bottle while Jolyne's ignoring near everyone.

She has, however, found a new song and dance that she's fond of. Don't question it. Or do.]

B. Meeeeechanics

[For once she was true to her word about making this club and actual thing and seems a little engrossed in making sure that everything is in working order in this sort of garage type of situation they have set up. She's already put up a poster opposite the main door with the rules, which are haphazard and blunt enough. And a few various posters of different brands, mostly the typical American fare since she's, you know, from there.

It doesn't take her long to be satisfied with the state of everything to quietly move over to what seems to be a bunch of parts in one section, a soft huff escaping her as she kneels down to look through it. Feel free to ask her what she's up to or just comment on whatever she's doing. As far as she cares, with how hot it still seems to be, the garage door is absolutely open to get some wind and air in.]

C. Legionnaire quarters

[Her other main haunt will forever be legionnaire, typically found in the mornings and evening either swimming, punching the bags, or running. But with school having started up, if she's not in classes or in the garage, this is the only other place she tends to haunt. Mostly because she knows she can avoid certain people by being here and it's a good place to try and work out a lot of her tension.

Any of the regulars might realize that her schedule has changed that drastically and seeming to be far more concerned with beating up on the punching bags, though primarily by herself than instead of having her familiar's help.]

Fuck you! [She's snarling as she's giving a particularly rough punch this time around before backing off, teeth gritted for a brief moment until she realizes what she's doing and is quickly changing her expression to the usual neutral.

Shit, maybe that was a little more than she meant to do. Hopefully no one's bothering to pay attention.]

Comments

A

[bolderfell]

...Don't you get hot, doing that outside?

[And here's Therion, creeping on other students, by now perhaps also a familiar scenario.]

You'd think there'd be some kind of dance studio.

[strings_theory]

[Honestly, it's fine. Stone Free saw him way before Jolyne did and had already done some subtle shit to let her know that he was coming around.

She's biting back a small bit of a smile and slowly shrugging. It's not like she's wearing more than a sports bra and shorts.]

I'm from Southern Florida, this ain't shit for me. And you'd think, but evidently not.

[bolderfell]

[Yes, well, Therion likes his sweaters and hoodies, apparently, even when it's still this warm. He straightens his legs out where he's seated on the ground and holds his ankles, stretching lightly.]

Is it that fun? You practice a lot, for someone doing it on their own.

[strings_theory]

[To each their own, even if she finds that shit SUPER. WEIRD. It's fine.

She will take a long drink from her water bottle before answering him, though.]

You wanna see if it's fun? I got some simpler shit if you wanna give it a go?

[bolderfell]

[He hums as he leans further into the stretch and holds it, eyes closed.]

...Sure. Why not?

[It feels like nothing's been going his way lately. At the very least, even if this ends up being stupid, dancing will help him stay limber and kill some time. He sits back up and offers her a dry look.]

But I'm not doing that thing with my ass.

[strings_theory]

[Congrats, Therion, you're getting a genuine laugh out of her as she's messing around a bit to find a good video.]

Kind of more advanced shit that does that, anyway. And, ah, I think I found a good one. I'd suggest watching it first, I can even slow that shit down, before trying it?

[It's certainly a thing.]

[bolderfell]

Nah, don't slow it down yet. I want to hear how it should go.

[He comes over to watch and listen carefully. By the end, he's tapping a finger against his leg to the rhythm.]

Catchy. [With a nod, he straightens fully and starts stretching his arms.] So, how do we do this? You show me, I follow?

[strings_theory]

[Better believe she's keeping an eye on him with just the most amused look on her face, this is amazing and going better than she could have ever thought it would.

Until he's talking and she's jolting a little, oops.]

Might be the easiest way, yeah. Most of it's pretty simple for me, so I'll try my best not to go too fast at first?

[bolderfell]

[That makes him snort as he shakes his limbs out and readies himself.]

Wow. Don't hold back on my account, even though I've never done anything like this in my life.

[He must be warming up to her, if he feels free to be subtly sarcastic.]

[strings_theory]

[She can't even be mad at the sarcasm, just shrugging and standing.]

You seem limber enough to where it shouldn't be that hard. Stop me if I'm wrong. [She can be just as much of a brat when she wants to. She's just quietly undoing the buns in her hair to let her hair loose properly, since that works better for this. She also wasn't kidding about trying not to go too fast, hopefully he can keep up with her bullshit.

But she's at least sticking to the moves in that video instead of adding her own flourishes to it for now.

a

[stavros]

This one is about something dirty too, isn't it.

[strings_theory]

[Oh my god, why. She's rolling her eyes and taking the tossed water bottle from Stone Free.]

Nope. This one's... pretty straightforward in the lyrics, actually?

[stavros]

[She sees that look.]

What? I said nothing out of turn! You never know.

C

[aibolition]

[Well. By some definitions he is no one.

A clap resounds in the quarters, a laugh following it.]

You were doing so good there! Why hold back now? Tell that bag how you really feel.

[strings_theory]

[He unfortunately exists and can comment, so unfortunately he is someone in this context.

Though she's immediately bristling at every little noise that comes from him, not the best of times for her.]

Or you can get fucked and go find your entertainment elsewhere, I'm not a goddamned plaything for you to watch. [Each word has a harsh tone to it, but that's to be expected with her at this point.]

[aibolition]

[He can tell she's bristling. He doesn't seem bothered.]

What kind of childhood did you have where sitting back and watching playthings was considered fun?

[Pendantics, but if he's going to toy then he might as well go the whole mile.]

It doesn't look like you're getting much mileage out of the punching back besides yelling at it. Did they ban actual sparring here or what?

B. oh no

[yokeye]

[The second week in October, Toki feels like he can talk to Jolyne again. It may not go well, and she may kill him. It's a big risk, but in the rare quiet moments of reflection, she creeps into his thoughts and he can't leave it how they did. The garage is the third place he looks for her. The door is open and he spots her looking through a pile of, well, junk from his point of view. He strides over determinedly, but slows when he gets closer. He should run. Why is he doing this? Before he can stop himself, the words come out.]

Jolyne~! Hello.

Toki no

[strings_theory]

[Lucky for him that she has decided murdering people is an absolute last resort, given the one time she kinda murdered someone it didn't really feel good. In the slightest. Either way, she's pretty involved in putting some pieces together from this pile of supposed junk, humming softly to herself while looking at some blueprints on her phone.

She kinda seems serene while doing it, at least?

Until he's talking and she's visibly tensing up and making a note on her phone so she can keep doing what she was doing. Even if he's going to try talking to her.]

Why're you out here in the garage? [Short and to the point, but no malice in her tone at least.]

[yokeye]

[Taking that as not an immediate sign to get out, he kneels down next to her.]

I was looking for you. I wanted to apologize for how I phrased things that day. I didn't mean for you to- I'm sorry if it seemed like I was-

[He sighs. When it really matters, sometimes he's terribly inarticulate.]

I wasn't using you. You weren't just convenient. I think we went too fast and I did a bad job of expressing that.

[strings_theory]

[It's not the best of signs that she's still not looking at him while listening, but after the end she's pausing and letting out a soft sigh in turn.]

You sounded like him, you know. [Which is the majority of the reason she kind of blew up at him.]

Still not sure why you're apologizing, exactly, since a lot of it was my doing, anyway. [She's scrolling through her phone for a moment with a small frown and taking a wrench to start loosening a bolt.]

I still don't know what I'm doing, or where I'm going, or any of that shit. So it's not like I really have a plan on changing or anything, so you still might be better off keeping your distance entirely. I'm a bad influence and all that. [... There shouldn't be that much bitterness in that last sentence.]

[yokeye]

[He's pretty sure he knows which him she means, and that's not a good feeling.]

I'm apologizing because this is... I think we built it on having someone to hold onto when we didn't know what to do with things we felt and... I don't think I was good for you either. I thought I could help you, and you might even want help, or need it. I realized too late that I wasn't ready for this. I love you, but I needed to love myself too and I couldn't do that when all I thought about was you.

It's okay if you don't know where you're going, and I'm sorry I tried to make you figure it out before you wanted to. You don't have too change, you don't. I just- I thought that's what you wanted at the time.

[He won't deny she's a bad influence, but that doesn't matter. That's not her problem either. It's his.]

It's not your fault I couldn't say no, or that I let everything you said change my thoughts or actions because I wanted to make you happy. That's my problem.

[He stands and looks down at her digging through the parts. He doesn't belong here, in the garage. It's her space.]

I won't bother you again. I thought you deserved some kind of explanation, but I don't know if that even was one.

[strings_theory]

[She's mostly quiet as she hears him out, letting out a soft sigh of breath and pausing what she's doing yet again. Because this is far more than she thought she was going to get on this front, having thought she'd just be left alone until this whole mess was over. Evidently not.

It's... hard for her to believe some of it, already feeling far more guarded on these matters than she ever was before.]

That's the thing, isn't it? Was it really love if it was just the two of us trying to find something to ground us in this fucking reality? It hurts, but doesn't everything until you give it time to heal over? [She won't deny the days and nights she'd spent in her room, trying to figure everything out and ending up curling up on herself after exhausting herself by the crying and the screaming. It's been enough of a situation that she might even feel slightly numb to all of it at this point, she's not entirely sure if that's the case, but it's the exhaustion of it all that she can really feel.]

You weren't wrong, at the time, that a part of me did want to find some way to change. But there's a lot more that goes into it than you might have realized at the time, not everything that's happened in my life to make me the way I am has been my fault. It's something I'm gonna have to find some way to cope with and, honestly, I don't know if that's even really possible at the point I'm at or the situation I'm going to have to get involved in. I'm... I guess talking to someone about it, but the answers aren't simple and they'll take time, it's not going to be quick and I'm going to fuck it up along the way. Unfortunately that's just how I am and how much of a minefield all of this shit is.

[She's pausing briefly at her digging and sitting back to finally look at him, expression cool and collected. She's trying her best at this shit.]

And I don't want to be the cause for you sliding back, either. Just because I can't get my shit together doesn't mean you should have to suffer for it, you know?

[yokeye]

[Love is something he maybe doesn't understand completely yet, and she's right. It was relying too much on their mutual need for each other.]

I'm glad you're talking to someone. And I think we needed to work on things by ourselves.

[He doesn't want to say their relationship was a distraction, but it sort of was in some respects. Something to hide in.]

That's what I figured out, only I said it wrong, like I was accusing you and I didn't intend to.

[strings_theory]

[For once she's seeing some of this shit clearly instead of through a selfish and emotional lens. Whether that will last for long is anyone's guess at this point, but she's keeping an eye on him for now.]

Hilariously the person doing the most good isn't the damn therapist. [But she kind of figured that'd be the case, when there's someone who's been nothing but a hero, how would they understand the reasons she ended up where she was? It was a simple enough thing, she guessed.]

Yeah, I can see that. [Deep breaths, keep your calm, it's all fine right now.]

That's a good part of the reason I'd been avoiding places, not wanting to... I dunno, cause trouble or something? Kinda snapped at a lot of people after the whole Hunt bullshit and it wasn't really a great time and a lot of fucking bridges to mend. [There's the smallest, smallest hint of a smile.] All it fucking took was all that shit to see what's up, kinda fucked up, ain't it?

[yokeye]

The Hunt was... it hurt a lot of people.

[There's a little spark of anger under the surface. According to Valvatorez, no one had bothered to teach the students about it because it usually occurred in rural areas and they had other subjects to bring to the forefront. Toki had seen it coming, he thinks, a vision with a cyclops proxy for the one-eyed fey lord. But he'd never figured it out. He'd heard the dogs too, weeks before.]

It is, forcing you to face parts of yourself like that. Even if maybe something good will come out of it, some realization, it still shouldn't have happened the way it did.