( a lull of time. nat is abrasive, in an angry mood, short and unpleasant. but — this is jake. golden boy in the summer. hurt, from some asshole. so. )
[ Short enough exchange, but would've cleared it up for Jake. Loyalty's a hell of a sharp knife. He's seen it shape out from somewhere a lot warmer than the Canadian wilderness.
it was getting cold, for awhile. harder to find food. all the animals went to hibernating. couldn't find anything. we were eating maggots and the leather from the plane seats. misty found a peanut and we tried to split it. nothing was growing. cripsy leaves, frosty grass. i'd go out every day to hunt with the gun we found and there'd just be nothing except dirt and rocks, which we tried to eat too, when we were desperate. then it snowed for the first time, and the snow killed jackie. just froze her to death, straight through. but really we're the ones who killed her. we let her sleep outside even though it was cold. we acted like that was fine. and we could live with the body for a little while, try to figure out what to do with her. but we were so hungry. and when we built the pyre, she smelled so good. and we were starved. and she was meat.
so no. not us six. winter only barely touched jackie before we ate her. and that was winter one. so you should stay the fuck away from me, if you don't want to get caught in the crosshairs.
[ A pause. A long one — no typing dots, no disappearing and reappearing bubbles. Just silence, stretching the way oceans do in the middle of the night. An open expanse.
And that was winter one. Jake rereads the sentence three times over before he even thinks about replying at all. Thinks, again, about 1996. He was barely double digits. Nat got on a plane. They were all just kids from school. People are dying, and he doesn't trust shit.
( maybe he thinks she told him because he wants to know, or because she wants to be comforted, or because she's scared, or alone, or seeking absolution. it might all be true, but none of it is the reason — and the reason is because nat wants a bullet in the brain more than she wants her next breath. why won't anyone hate her for this? )
us. all of us. you. spike. ren. that's all i know. maybe more. people can guess what happened out there. everyone knows we were in a crash.
[ Not the first time — not by a long shot — he thinks of Bradshaw. This place. This earth, maybe. How is that your first question. Pixels by the letter, and yet he can still imagine how it might echo What's that supposed to mean. Mangled tone, raw pitch. Long, storied hole where his heart used to be. ]
[ but really we're the ones who killed her — we acted like that was fine — so you should stay the fuck away from me.
And to Jake Seresin, who's dared immutable forces like sky and sun and gravity to hold him and still come out the other side swinging, like none of it ever cost him a thing, the math is simple. ]
You're the one that has to live with it Not a question left I'm sure you haven't asked yourself.
( she wants to say — she wants to say he's wrong, for giving an inch. girls are evil this way, like burrowing worms, like a virus you can't shake. she'll take every kindness he gives her and use it until it's threadbare and raw, because that's what she is on the inside, deep down: the hunter, the survivalist, the girl in the woods willing to do anything to survive. she wants to say, you don't know half of it. she wants to say, sometimes we ate when we weren't even hungry. she wants to say, the wilderness turned us all into animals, and then it sent us here.
what she says, )
you're so fucked in the head, dude. you're just straight up not normal.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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two winters. yeah.
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All six of you?
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no.
( a lull of time. nat is abrasive, in an angry mood, short and unpleasant. but — this is jake. golden boy in the summer. hurt, from some asshole. so. )
you really wanna know?
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Still, when it comes: ]
Yeah
Really want to know.
cw: cannibalism
so no. not us six. winter only barely touched jackie before we ate her. and that was winter one.
so you should stay the fuck away from me, if you don't want to get caught in the crosshairs.
no subject
And that was winter one. Jake rereads the sentence three times over before he even thinks about replying at all. Thinks, again, about 1996. He was barely double digits. Nat got on a plane. They were all just kids from school. People are dying, and he doesn't trust shit.
At length: ]
How many people know?
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( maybe he thinks she told him because he wants to know, or because she wants to be comforted, or because she's scared, or alone, or seeking absolution. it might all be true, but none of it is the reason — and the reason is because nat wants a bullet in the brain more than she wants her next breath. why won't anyone hate her for this? )
us. all of us.
you. spike. ren. that's all i know. maybe more. people can guess what happened out there. everyone knows we were in a crash.
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What'd you think I'd ask.
"How could you?"
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yeah
or general disgust
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[ but really we're the ones who killed her — we acted like that was fine — so you should stay the fuck away from me.
And to Jake Seresin, who's dared immutable forces like sky and sun and gravity to hold him and still come out the other side swinging, like none of it ever cost him a thing, the math is simple. ]
You're the one that has to live with it
Not a question left I'm sure you haven't asked yourself.
no subject
what she says, )
you're so fucked in the head, dude. you're just straight up not normal.
how's your face?