fh_trips | Kohala Coast, Hawaii | Morning & Afternoon | Tuesday

Karla felt obscurely guilty for not having saved them, in that case. But what would she have done? Given them to him in a sack?

"So you came back whole? You just sort of...put yourself back together? After your body went the way of Adel's?"

She caught the waiters eye and pointed to the bottle of Carling. They were going to need a few more of these.

"But the same thing happened then that it did this past summer, didn't it? Hell's fire, Jono. That--" What? Sucks? Is awful? Duh. He knew that better than she did. "--I owe you more beers. You need to get drunk."

//Nobody owes me anything,// Jono protested, shrugging his shoulders a bit.

...

//That said, I wouldn't mind being a little out of my head, at least for a better part of th'day. Just so long as I'm sober for this evening.//

"You were an amazing friend to people for no other reason than because that's what you are," Karla said firmly. "Which means I need to be an equally amazing friend just to keep up. Ergo, I owe you more beers. Otherwise, I'm just going to assume that you are deliberately trying to sabotage my efforts at being a good friend."

Shut up. That totally made sense and you know it, Jono. Or he would after she got a few more beers into him.

"And I'll just cut the link later on," she promised. "One immediately sober Jono coming up." She glanced longingly at her bright yellow drink and then again over at the waiter who was heading their way with more beer. "You mind if I intersperse a few fruity drinks in with the Carlings?"

//Of course not,// he replied, shaking his head a little. //My masculinity might be on th'line, but really, for as often as I get to appreciate anything like this...//

Well, beggars and hollowed-out mutants with no mouths can't be choosers.

//You could be drinking chocolate milk all evening, and if you'd decided that you were going to share, I'd be quite alright with that, luv.//

Edited 2011-02-25 02:53 (UTC)

*You know you can poke me anytime we're together and I'll share, right?* Karla checked, using a psychic thread because she was too busy drinking her sunshiny goodness. The bartenders had caught on to her impressive metabolism by now and were making her drinks much stronger. So it was alcohol-infused sunshiny goodness. *You don't have to wait for me to offer. The invitation is always open to you.*

Jono's reply to that, at first, was simply a shrug and a reach for the nearby salt shaker, which he was going to just fidget with for the next little while.

//I feel stupid, asking,// he admitted. //But... thank you, at any rate.//

"Why?" Karla asked, finally coming up for air. Already, the alcohol was making her feel flushed. "Especially if you know I'm going to say yes?"

//Well...// Jono watched her for a moment, and then continued with his fidget. And if his fidget involved upending the salt shaker and then tracing one finger through the grains on the tabletop, what of it? //Suppose there was something that everybody in th'world could do... something they all took for granted, and you couldn't. No way at all that you could, but you could... fake yer way through, if you had help. But getting help meant admitting that... you couldn't...//

Because you were half-there.

Because for all the destruction that you were capable of causing, you still couldn't sing, or breathe, or taste, or kiss...

It took a moment for Karla to sort through all of that, followed by a small "Oooooooh." Hello, light of dawning comprehension.

"I think...I think I understand," she said slowly. "It's one thing if the people you care about remember on their own, but something all together different if you have to remind them that you're...only faking,"

Jono nodded. Something like that, at least.

//And it isn't even something important, really. Th'world will keep turning if I never taste a beer again. It'd be easier to ask for help if it was... life and death, perhaps. Otherwise, it's just me pointing out that I can't.//

Which he tended to do on a more or less regular basis already. But with more moping, and less asking for lager.

"Yeah, but...not everything had to be about life or death situations," Karla pointed out quietly. "It's the little things in between that make us happy and content and sane. The life and death stuff is necessary for survival. The little, unimportant things, like the taste of beer or being pleasantly tipsy...that's what our lives are. Hanging out with you isn't what keeps me alive, Jono," she said, drawing lines in the melting frost on her cup. "But it makes me happy. Makes my life better. It's not about whether or not the world keeps turning, I think. But more whether or not we care."

//And in a few months, when I've graduated and gone?// Jonothon's eyebrows had furrowed now, and he brushed his hand through the salt, evening it out on the tabletop. //It's all nice in th'meantime, I suppose. But I really shouldn't get used to it, either.//

To being able to experience taste. To being able to rely on others. To not being a human weapon at least part of the time. Pick one.

His fingers trailed in the salt once again, drawing a circle, first. And then drawing an X inside of it.

Karla's face fell at the reminder that Jono would be going soon and she bit back her instinctive question of whether he had to go. He knew as well as she did that he had a music store in town; if he hadn't already thought about it as a possibility for his post-high school career, then there probably was a good reason for it.

"I don't disagree with you, entirely," she said instead. "Just saying that your friends, wherever they are, probably won't begrudge you help, even if it isn't some kind of life or death emergency." Grabbing one of the new bottles of Carling, she toasted him with it before drinking. *You're worth it.*

It was a sense of duty, of course, that had him convinced that he had to go back.

Or, possibly, a sense of guilt.

//Even if you feel as though you have t'chew?//

Guilt, duty, or otherwise, there was something to be said for the occasional lighthearted remark. Even from Jono.

"Even though I have to chew," Karla said, grinning. "And though I'm more worried about getting full than getting drunk. The sacrifices I make for friendship, really."

//They don't go unappreciated,// Jonothon replied, almost managing to sound a bit solemn about that. //And, truth be told, I wouldn't mind a reminder as to what it's like to feel full, either.//

The things that he missed...

"Well, it's a good thing I have these beers then," Karla teased. "Usually, I only have varying states of hungry!"

Jono was very nearly smiling again.

//What a pair th'waiters must think we are,// he noted. //One bottomless pit, and one bloke who hasn't even ordered a complimentary water, yet.//

"It would be wrong to challenge people to an eating or drinking contest while we're here, wouldn't it?" Karla asked, glancing around with mischief. "Unfair advantages and all that. But I bet we could sucker them in for a lot. And I'd put the money to good use, I really would!"

Buying more alcohol, probably.

//Mmm, I don't doubt that you would,// Jono replied with that hint of a smirk lingering in his eyes. //Someday, you'll meet yer match, luv. And then what?//

Some terrible part of him actually wanted to see this happen.

That same terrible part of him was also trying to figure out if meals would be served via dump-truck.

"We would join forces and descend upon the countryside like a horde of ravening locusts," Karla said solemnly. "The destruction would be catastrophic and a great wailing would be heard across the land as we devoured the last of everything tasty."

She chuckled a bit. "Incidentally, that's how I referred to all seven of my children at every meal last weekend."

//As locusts? My two weren't so bad, really. Vedder was fairly self-sufficient, and Elizabeth... mostly just wanted pancakes.//

Even Jono, who hadn't prepared a meal in years, could handle pancakes.

...Karla hadn't been allowed to try. Both her children and their other parents--and any other adult in the room--had forbidden it.

"I think the part I liked best about last weekend was seeing the children who were already friends. Elizabeth and Kayla. Nommy and Henry. It made them seem more real almost. Real little people with their own ideas and relationships. Made them feel less like phantoms conjured up by Fandom for a weekend, you know?"

It had also made Della and Rook's situations seem more real. And frightening.

//I think I know what you mean,// Jono replied, with a small nod of his head. //Th'weekends are so short, you barely get to know who they are before they're off again. Some of them never t'be seen again.//

He didn't entirely know how be felt about that.

//They're no less real for it, but... timelines, and all. They had to come from somewhere. We just might never see those places, ourselves.//

"Just some of those timelines seem so impossible, it's like trying to imagine a fairy tale is real or something," Karla said. "Like Bobina, my iron-handed daughter with Bobby--who, by the way, was the one who carried her for nine months. I know that that future is real for her, but it's never going to be mine. She was like a dream brought to life for a few days. But then others seem so real it's hard to remember than they're still only possibilities."

She rested her chin on her hand and looked at Jono. *What did you think about the futures you got to see?* she sent.

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