#hollis|interaction.

“you know what? you drive then!” hollis swerved the car a little dangerously to the side of the road, completely uncaring about causing a scene in front of their new girlfriend and another one of their friends. they were less than twenty minutes away from their next hotel stop and her ex made one comment on her driving, which had resulted in the sudden outburst. she was already feeling rather tense from being the two of them being in such a close proximity and really it hadn’t taken much to have her acting irrationally. she made a point of turning off the engine and tossing the car keys over her shoulder towards them. “this was a fucking stupid idea,” she grumbled as she slipped out of the car, ripping the backdoor open and waiting for them to change places with her.

hollis had kept in touch with jo in the lead up to spending time with her family over christmas. it didn’t feel right that they ignored one another and then pretended everything was fine when they saw her family. things actually felt a little easier now if you asked her. she didn’t want to run from every conversation and cry, so that was something. she’d headed over fairly early that morning to pick up her ex, though the car ride had been mostly silent as dictated by her nerves. by the time they were stood outside of her family home hollis was completely convinced she might crack at any minute  — though she didn’t get the chance to before her mother was throwing open the door and making a fuss. the fuss lasted all of about five minutes before her sister arrived and the attention was transferred to that part of the family, leaving her stood awkwardly in the kitchen with her ex. “well... that wasn’t awful, right?” 

there’s a saccharine smile painted on her lips, one hollis typically wouldn’t offer to an ex. in all honestly she’d normally go out of her way to avoid them but she was desperate. besides, it wasn’t as if they were on the worst of terms. they still mingled with some of the same sort of people and that was probably just about the only reason she’d managed to convince them to meet up with her. “so... i need to tell you something and you’re probably not going to like it,” she admitted, eyes dropping to her half-empty coffee cup. she’d been stalling. “you know christmas is coming up, right? it’s just that... i haven’t told my parents we broke up. they’re expecting us to go over like we did last year.”

“why are you looking at me like that?” she was rather casual about wiping the blood off of her knife and onto her thigh, marking her already stained jeans. “do i have something on my face?” her recent kill had been a lonely stranger, a guy the two of them had come across on their recent raid. he’d claimed that he didn’t mean them any harm but it was so hard to know the true intentions of people these days and hollis wasn’t willing to take any risks. not when they were involved. for all she knew, he had a group waiting somewhere to jump them and all he had to do was take them there. not happening. tucking her knife into the little makeshift holster she had, she leaned down to rummage around in the guy’s backpack, sparing a little glance up at them. “what?” 

they’d been on the road for a day or so now and after stopping off at the motel their little group had decided to celebrate night one of their trip with some drinks. luckily there was a bar not a five minute walk from where they were staying and even if it was a little rundown, the drink was cheap and no one could really complain. since it was so cheap, it was no surprise that hollis ended up a little tipsy. she was nervous about sharing a room with sierra that night, given the huge crush she had on her, so she hoped getting a little tipsy might help her fall asleep the second they got back. however, that was far from the case. she felt as wide awake as ever. they’d just made it back to the hotel room and she was practically buzzing with nervous energy, settling on the edge of her bed and looking over at the other. “so... you tired... or?”

“is everything alright here?” hollis tried not to intrude on situations that didn’t involve her, but there was something about the interaction that she’d been watching for the past couple of moments that had unsettled her. she didn’t quite know what she planned on doing as she made her way towards the pair: bite the ankles of the aggressor, perhaps? a voice in her mind unhelpfully supplied as she swallowed down any nerves at having perhaps read the situation wrong. it was a fairly busy bar and she figured that she had to be wrong... but just in case. “looked a little  —  tense, if you ask me.”

“i can’t do this today. probably not tomorrow either. hold that thought, how about never?” it wasn’t unlike hollis to completely shut a conversation down when it wasn’t going the way she wanted it to and really the unfortunate thing was that once she’d made her mind up, there was very little changing it. 

“i’m not asking for much. just... super casual, help-me-get-over-my-broken-heart sex.” hollis grins brightly, as brightly as she can considering what she’s requesting of someone that she considers a friend. “i could go hook up with someone from a club but who knows who i might end up with, y’know? at least with you i know what i’m getting.”