outbreak

she tried to envision it -- her mother younger, darting around a basketball court with a grin and a laugh. shoulders a bit lighter, maybe. no worried crease between her brows. grace wish she could've known alyssa back then, wondered if they would have gotten along. she wished that she inherited more from her mother... her introverted behavior and little nuances must have come from her dad, whoever he was.

an offer on her tongue. maybe if they ever had nothing happening, alyssa could show HER. but grace knew better. as much as she wanted to know her mother more, she really didn't want to play basketball. or any ball. unless it was backyard baseball that she still sometimes played on her laptop.

"with our luck, nasa will ask you to go to the moon on some assignment. if that happens, PLEASE let me stay earthbound." she mirrored her mother's movements, swinging coming to a slow stop and she finally allowed her hands to stop knuckle gripping the chains long enough to settle in her lap. "ugh, fine. no alligator." the pout on her lips was too pronounced to be sincere, grace doing her absolute best not to crack a smile before finally moving to stand.

"could we make beignets? i saw pictures of them in new orleans and they look soooooo good." the concept of the sugar covered dough was enough to make her salivate, but luckily her stomach was still full of smoothie and wasn't about to growl about it. attention snapped back to the matter at hand though -- she couldn't help but feel... WEIRD about the fact that this guy didn't show up. but it only lasted for a second before she made herself shake it off. whatever. maybe he got the day wrong or something.

"do you know when we're gonna go there?" not that it really mattered to grace. it wasn't like she had any friends to give goodbyes to or a checklist of things to complete here. if anything, the sooner they got out the better -- the internet connection sucked here. they had to still be on dial up or something.

Her abandoned swing creaked a little with her gone, and she collected her bag on the ground to throw over her shoulder with a last, searching look for that kid she once knew. No dice, no show. She'd catch him later. Maybe he got the date wrong or something. She made a lot of excuses in that one moment, knowing full damn well something happened to the kid.

(txt; Kevin): Hey Kev, Jamal never showed up. (txt; Kevin): Can you figure out where he's been? I got his plate for you.

She put her phone off and away in its little pouch, holding out an arm and a hand for her already excited daughter if she wanted it. Never in her life did she think she'd see the day where someone would have more energy than she would. Grace had leaps and bounds today and she had absolutely none at all. I'm definitely sick.

If she was, it'd been for a week.

"We can try to make beignets. I dunno a good place for em', but we're gonna be around for Mardi Gras, so why not just trek around New Orleans for the celebration and breakfast? I don't think we've ever eaten gator together. Tastes exactly like chicken."

Alyssa wiggled her fingers insistently.

He was all nerves, treading in waters that were unfamiliar.

He'd never dealt with a death of a friend like this. Never had to answer a call designating him the emergency contact. Never really had to be responsible for anyone but himself in a long-term arrangement.

And as far as Kurt went, he wasn't worried about anything other than figuring out what happened to him. Alyssa wasn't 'his' in any kind of possessive sense, but it was just... strange. A month ago, he'd showed Kevin the ring, and asked him if he thought it was a good idea.

"Go, for it man, the worst she can do is say yes!" "I thought the worst thing she could do is say no, Kev." "Nah, think of it like this- you pop the question, she says no, but she's flattered, and nothing changes. If she says yes... well, there's a lot of people that's important to her, bud," he'd grinned, "You're going to have to get real comfortable talking in front of all those folks and letting someone else take your pictures."

He had fun teasing his friend 'til he was greener than a dollar bill.

And two days ago, he was gone.

Why was he worried?

"Hm..." he deliberated with himself, slowly, meeting Alyssa as she walked closer to meet him, "I didn't mean it like that, I meant your feelings. I'm still not real sure how I feel, either."

A mess. Frazzled. All pins and needles. He wasn't going to lie to himself that having a different kind of distraction wouldn't be a good reprieve.

It wasn't a good idea, but it was also one of the only ideas she had. Her head was a clot of messy actions, but this was Kevin Ryman, who had seen a lot of the worst of her already, and also the best of her. He'd braced himself for her blows and lashings until her vinegar transmuted to apple cider on a warm day.

"Feelings. I feel dead, and empty," she muttered, merging into his space with her body, to rotate around him with half her head in bandages. They had always had a tight personal bubble. He never minded her intruding on his, and invited himself into her space after she stopped swatting at him.

There were times he perched on a wall a head higher than her, sitting like a bird and leaning down to tell her messages from above (the sandwiches at this place are buy one get one, take one), or the one time they sat together on the balcony of a warehouse while he smoked a cig and she ignored the rave in the background she'd been invited to for a heap of cash (complicated). She took him for a sandwich after.

They talked about life then, and they were talking about death now. Full circle, same story: I don't know what to do, or how to feel. Something is wrong, let's stay together.

Alyssa turned in place slowly under the rain shadows through his windows, and reached for his clothes to gently feel the shape of the creases by his sides. The little spark she started became constant, thrumming static for her, legs to toes.

"You can fix that? Make me feel good?"

Then something nudged his boot and his head snapped up in surprise.

It was a girl, or a young woman, staring down at him. He blinked. She was all dolled up in warm, cozy-looking clothing that made him feel colder. Looking at her face she didn’t seem much older than him, but everything about her screamed made-up and mature. Like the college girls he would sometimes see at parties. Her eyes were very sharp.

She was also very pretty.

“W-what?” His voice caught in his throat and he immediately felt embarrassed. She talked like someone who did this often, completely comfortable, dropping baby on him like old ladies used to when he was a kid. His eyes were damp from the cold and he was sure they were red-rimmed and swollen. He probably looked like he’d been crying, and he felt the childish urge to tell her he wasn’t but held back. Why should it matter what she thought. He was too tired to care anymore.

Reflexively, he almost said no when she asked if he wanted help. Fuck, he really did, but why and what was she offering? Maybe she just wanted him to move. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find the energy to. He shivered again. Or maybe she was going to lure him someplace where he’d be jumped and his organs harvested for sale. It made a sick sort of sense. Why else would some pretty girl be approaching a homeless guy?

But he was so fucking cold.

He swallowed. “Who are you?” Cautious, hesitant, his voice was cracked and dry. What do you want?

And this kid looked to be in the same school year as she was. Young. No tats, no piercings. By the time they were sixteen, every generational gang inductee had something on them. He had none, so the spattering of damage on him wasn't all about that. They wouldn't haze him and dump him in the middle of the low income housing. They'd just kill the guy.

"You're outside my damn house. C'mon. If a cop sees you looking like shit we're both fucked."

So, she offered her arm to him to step up with, wondering if they had to de-frost his toes in the bath and get blood out of clothes (she had some options). His eyes were red, his lips were a little blue. She could see his breath on the air. The good news was he was alert, at the very least. Scared, also.

"You've got no tats, no special earrings, and any gangbanger wouldn't be caught dead with red eyes... We in the same year or somethin'? I don't recognize you. C'mon."

She waved with her hand, twice, for him to reach out and grab it. She'd do this again when they were adults to peel him up off convulsing on the floor. By the time she'd be dead they'd repeat the process of saving each other again, and again.

Alyssa peeled him off the concrete near her car, pulling his arm over her back whether or not he squirmed or protested. The stairs? Too bad. They needed to climb them.

"You're cold as hell. You know it's gonna snow."

Pouring them both into the door, the apartment was warm and smelled like bubbling stock and vegetables. It was warm. The place was bare as anything in the common areas. Nothing in the halls, nothing in the spare room. The door at the end of the hall was closed and locked.

There was a pot bubbling on a sterile, clean counter. Everything was so manicured and clean it seemed like nobody lived there.

"What's your name, tiger?"

Alyssa dipped into one of the doors off the hall, and it seemed like all the life in the place was in a single room. Newspapers were pinned into the wall in all places. There was a typewriter at a desk, manuscript next to nail polish. An old dresser filled with clothes was half open. She whirled through her room, collecting an armful of men's clothes to launch at him without giving him room to breathe.

That command sounded a little sharp in the absence of the blaring horns and against the backdrop of droning rain and distant thunder. Alyssa let her hands lower, and her expression changed as she verbally dismissed any thought of Jess...

... and offered herself instead.

Kevin felt like his stomach fell to his feet, and that sense of unease and illness crept back into him. In any other circumstance, it might have been a no-brainer, depending on if Kurt was open to swinging.

But she was hurt- specifically with a head injury. Their mutual friend, who intended to marry her, had been dead less than two days.

"Um... I guess there was a couple of things I could've done she liked. I dunno, I didn't listen to the whole message."

This wasn't a moment where Alyssa was talking to someone that wasn't there, either. The last couple of days, she acted like she was in two places at once, sometimes talking to Kevin directly, sometimes answering to something that Kevin couldn't perceive.

There was also the possibility that she wouldn't remember these moments in recovery, he'd read. Brain injuries were tricky like that. There wasn't going to be any real way to tell how her new normal was until she'd healed.

And of all the people in the world, Alyssa was someone he didn't want to jeopardize a friendship with.

"Hey, Alyssa? Are you really sure you want to mess around like that? And... like that?" he asked gesturing to her bandages, " 'cause I don't want you to get hurt."

Her brows scrunched, wearing "it was the most obvious thing in the world" on her face even if her brain was bleeding and her skull was bleeding. Was this a good idea? Even with brain damage she could look at it from an outsider perspective and say, absolutely not. No, it wasn't. Hooking up before her dove was dead and cold in whatever grave he was in?

Her body was empty and felt like lead.

No. It wasn't.

The alternative was to let her compulsions take her elsewhere and follow worse things. The only thing that would stop her would have been her physical limitations. She never cried at loss, sure. She disappeared, or fought, or got stronger.

She didn't know what she'd do, only that it wasn't good, whatever it was. Trying to dredge her memories up of the last time her heart had been hollowed out and she'd... run from home. She'd left entirely and told nobody in any authority. She'd taken up every possible risk she could and managed it by force. That was what this was, wasn't it?

Control. Some kind of it. Kurt was dead, and he wasn't going to protest.

"Why you worried?" she asked, much quieter than the sharp words she'd been offering up. She touched the side of her head. The sticky mush under it protested and twinged like a bunch of deepset needles. It wasn't enough of a deterrent as feeling like a corpse without a purpose. But...

"Kurt isn't gonna care. He didn't care when I was working. Wouldn't care now. He liked you."

She stood there like a string-less puppet and moved one socked foot at a time to walk after him and study him. He was nerves and pins.

He couldn't even fight that one. He had a reputation for being a bit of a womanizer, and he couldn't help himself but enjoy the company of women and have a little fun with his spare time.

Not like there was a lot of it.

He liked to flirt, liked to proposition, there were plenty of 'no's' and a surprising amount of 'yes's'. Turned out if you were upfront, bold, decently nice, and flattering, eventually you'd find someone to hook up with that had the same idea in mind: short-term, no kids.

And Alyssa always loved to tease and give him flak for it. She poked him in his sides and made him flinch.

"Hey-" she always had a knack for digging at sensitive spots, "Makin' fun of me..."

He stepped back when she let go of him, patting his sides down with a mock aggrieved expression, before straightening up and walking around the couch to stop the player, pull the needle up, and take the vinyl to put back in its album cover, before returning it to the shelf.

"This week," he drawled, taking his hands off of her back and placing them on her shoulders, "This week, I'm lookin' after you. Emergency contact and all. So I'm not getting busy with anyone." Kevin turned back around to face her and walked back to lean against the back of the couch, sitting halfway on the welt of the top cushion and propping himself up with a palm.

For a second, it felt like she was under water. A little flash of a moment and she was being pushed down under a rapid by the force of a fall. The noise of it drummed in her ears and the eye on her bad side cinched shut out of reflex. And then it was gone. When she opened her eye again, the residual nothing left behind by a lack of memory felt like this... insatiable hunger to do something.

Describing herself as empty wasn't enough. She felt like something slit her horizontal and poured her guts in a street nobody would clean for years and nobody cared about except for the two people in this apartment. She had nothing to retaliate against yet, either, and wasn't in the shape to start throwing jabs even if she wanted to hit something so hard it would break.

Kevin gave her some space she didn't actually want. Alyssa let him go for longer than conversational usual, and the tone changed. Music gone, there wasn't a lot of noise in the place.

"Don't bother."

She opened both hands and languidly dropped them to her sides while he lounged, coy and absolutely bushed for the day. This was not going to be her best performance, but certainly not her worst.

"You don't got Jess, you got me. For a whole week."

A hand went to her hip and she looked at him like an appraiser.

He patted her back when she laid her head on his chest, remarking that she couldn't cry, and she didn't know why. How empty she felt.

She stopped swaying, and he stopped moving her. Her skin was getting clammy again, and she must have needed a break from moving around. Honestly, he was surprised by how much she'd moved around. Down three flights of stairs, up six, down six, up three, and a dance to top it all off.

"Not everyone cries when they grieve," he says, "Sometimes the crying comes later, sometimes not at all. The Knoll kid didn't cry either, not at the scene, not through court, not 'til the prison rejected visitation." 'Cause there wasn't anyone there to visit. Jacoby Knoll, who murdered his wife and two out of three kids before holding the last hostage and trying to turn the gun on himself, was also missing.

And the paperwork said the man was 'Pending Release'. The prison never got him. Something happened in transport.

No one was held accountable.

The kid never got closure.

Kevin sighed, and pulled Alyssa into an embrace, "I cry at things. I'm a big sap. I keep it together as much as I can, but I do. If you don't feel like you can, don't stress it. Doesn't make what you're going through any less real."

The recording slowed, and the tracks changed. The slow, melancholic trot changed into a fanfare arranged to sound like car horns and bustling streets with jaunty sax riffs and muted trumpets blaring tritones.

Kevin groaned, letting his head fall backward in exasperation.

It was enviable to be left with something internal rather than feel like an abandoned building. That was painful. What was also painful was the spike of horns and sax from Mr. Miller's finest hits. The needle crackled static a bit to break it up. This was the familiar tune to every Macy's Day Parade commercial she'd ever seen. She'd seen wolves promoting diet pills and bears promoting Coke to this song. It was loud, annoying, and Kurt's way from beyond the grave to stop being so damn sad about him already.

He'd hate that. Kurt didn't like "bugging" people at all. Much less upsetting her by doing something to "put his foot in his mouth".

"C'mon. You ain't In the Mood?"

Her sarcasm could've cut ribbons to opening ceremonies, even if she was speaking from a huge distance away. Alyssa pulled her head off his shoulder to give him a look.

"That's rare for you. You usually got a gal here who you drop trow for."

The telltale signs of a girl in his apartment were absent. No toothbrushes or renegade clothes. Must've broke up with his last squeeze before she was moved in. She'd think it was a shame if she wasn't tossing the idea around in her head herself. In his apartment for a week with a forced nothing to do sounded like something she could do.

"Jess, Katlyn, Shawna–... Whoever."

She kept up enough with him to know he filled his time with women and the names changed. If he got a bunch of fish tomorrow from a pop up carnival game she could name all of them by Kevin's flings. It was admirable because they didn't just hit it and quit it. They kept coming back or trying to come back, so he had some kind of piece on him they liked. He was happy to tell her about his bombshell of the week. She usually was happy to tell him her opinion.

"That one hooker with a great ass. Candy?"

Her opinion of that one? Sky high.

Alyssa prodded his side with the backs of her knuckles, slowly detaching from him to stand a pace back.