05-17-2013, 10:12 AM
They agree upon a meeting place with an approximate time. Sid, quietly clinging to the strap of her bag, the furrow of her brow deeper than usual, manages to keep her head enough to tell them all to turn off their cell phones. Take out the batteries if they must. She doesn't know yet what the Ecstatics discovered in their vision, doesn't yet know just how deeply fucked they all will be if they're tracked and found, but she can tell it's bad.
Mara gets into her car and takes off and the others climb into the van, Dan behind the wheel, Sera beside him. Sid takes the first seat available after Jim, ends up sitting right beside him. Jake is the only one alone, but that's probably for the best right now, with his grief still so fresh and raw and terrible. It's one thing to expect the worst, to prepare for it, to assume that Shelby was never coming back. But without the certainty for knowing there's room for a little seed of hope to grow, a tiny little niggling thing that helps to keep a person afloat. Tonight that seed was crushed for the Consor. He needs a moment to attempt to come to terms with reality.
The van has hardly started when the sounds of retching fill the small enclosed space. Beside her, Jim buries his face in the closest thing he can find. Sid startles at the sound, leans her upper body a little away from him, eyes darting up down up down, from what she can see of his face to the liquid sag of the bag he's found fill with the contents of his stomach. Drawing in a deep breath, closing her eyes and steeling herself against the smell of bile, she lifts her left hand. It hovers above the curve of Jim's spine a moment before slowly, cautiously lowering down. She can feel the bumps of vertebrae against her palm, can feel the spasms of his back with each retch. Jim can feel the warmth of Sid's hand through the fabric of his shirt, the heat of it seeping deep into his skin, relaxing the muscles. Slowly, Sid slides her hand up his back, then down, the movements awkward, then slowly smoothing out to something more natural. Leaning forward herself, she rests her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand, her face turned away to watch out the window as they drive and drive and drive.
===
Later, at the meeting place on the fringes, Sid collects the bags of waste, taking them from hands or picking them up from the floor. Without word or explanation, she goes into the convenience store along with Sera, but once inside beelines for the restrooms, backing up against the door and pushing her way inside. When she emerges a few minutes later her hands are empty (and freshly washed), the former contents of Sera's and Jim's stomachs fed to the city's sewage system.
Sera hands her a prepaid phone, and for a moment Sid merely blinks at her, confused, before accepting it. She has two calls of her own to make, the first to her housemate, letting him know she lost her phone but won't be home tonight and no, she doesn't really want to talk about it right now. Later, maybe. The second call is to her work, letting them know that she feels terrible and she doesn't think she'll be feeling any better by morning, so someone will need to take her shift. When she's finished she holds the phone out to the others, offering it in case someone else needs to make similar calls before dismantling the device and throwing a couple pieces into the nearby trash bin. She keeps the battery, because you just never know.
Back in the van Sid is quiet as ever. Her hands stay on the bag she has tucked in her lap, one wrapped over the other, which is clutching a fold of cloth. Her spine is curved forward, the slope of her shoulders is relaxed as she watches the lights streak past the darkened windows.
Mara gets into her car and takes off and the others climb into the van, Dan behind the wheel, Sera beside him. Sid takes the first seat available after Jim, ends up sitting right beside him. Jake is the only one alone, but that's probably for the best right now, with his grief still so fresh and raw and terrible. It's one thing to expect the worst, to prepare for it, to assume that Shelby was never coming back. But without the certainty for knowing there's room for a little seed of hope to grow, a tiny little niggling thing that helps to keep a person afloat. Tonight that seed was crushed for the Consor. He needs a moment to attempt to come to terms with reality.
The van has hardly started when the sounds of retching fill the small enclosed space. Beside her, Jim buries his face in the closest thing he can find. Sid startles at the sound, leans her upper body a little away from him, eyes darting up down up down, from what she can see of his face to the liquid sag of the bag he's found fill with the contents of his stomach. Drawing in a deep breath, closing her eyes and steeling herself against the smell of bile, she lifts her left hand. It hovers above the curve of Jim's spine a moment before slowly, cautiously lowering down. She can feel the bumps of vertebrae against her palm, can feel the spasms of his back with each retch. Jim can feel the warmth of Sid's hand through the fabric of his shirt, the heat of it seeping deep into his skin, relaxing the muscles. Slowly, Sid slides her hand up his back, then down, the movements awkward, then slowly smoothing out to something more natural. Leaning forward herself, she rests her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand, her face turned away to watch out the window as they drive and drive and drive.
===
Later, at the meeting place on the fringes, Sid collects the bags of waste, taking them from hands or picking them up from the floor. Without word or explanation, she goes into the convenience store along with Sera, but once inside beelines for the restrooms, backing up against the door and pushing her way inside. When she emerges a few minutes later her hands are empty (and freshly washed), the former contents of Sera's and Jim's stomachs fed to the city's sewage system.
Sera hands her a prepaid phone, and for a moment Sid merely blinks at her, confused, before accepting it. She has two calls of her own to make, the first to her housemate, letting him know she lost her phone but won't be home tonight and no, she doesn't really want to talk about it right now. Later, maybe. The second call is to her work, letting them know that she feels terrible and she doesn't think she'll be feeling any better by morning, so someone will need to take her shift. When she's finished she holds the phone out to the others, offering it in case someone else needs to make similar calls before dismantling the device and throwing a couple pieces into the nearby trash bin. She keeps the battery, because you just never know.
Back in the van Sid is quiet as ever. Her hands stay on the bag she has tucked in her lap, one wrapped over the other, which is clutching a fold of cloth. Her spine is curved forward, the slope of her shoulders is relaxed as she watches the lights streak past the darkened windows.