strangetrip | [EP] The eye of the storm

Anybody coming to find out what all the noise in the lobby had been about would find a girl sitting on the floor with a cat in her lap, bloodied hands stroking over its black fur.

When Yasmeen had gone away, when Sansa had gone away, Snow had managed to get herself out and away from the inn where she could let her noise out without fearing any person, or more importantly, the horses. And both those times, Kash had found her and helped her scrape herself back together. She had come so much to rely on him being there, that at first she hadn't believed it. She'd gone searching, like a child trying to grasp the meaning of dead. She'd wandered all over the grounds, gone to his room, gone to the stables, gone to the clinic, walked miles of paths. It was only then that she'd given up and asked Darryl.

Then she lost her shit.

She howled, threw anything small and breakable that she could lay her hands on, and punched the walls until her knuckles were raw and bleeding.

What was she going to do without him? Kash had always been there for her when she didn't think she could talk to anybody else. He had saved Juno. Who would help her now when any of the animals were injured or sick? Who would hear what she was saying, even when she couldn't say it? He was her friend. Perhaps the best friend she'd ever had.

This was what happened when you trusted people. They just left. They just fucking left.

And she probably would have screamed herself hoarse if it weren't for the feeling of a furry little body slinking around one of her ankles. Of course she wouldn't have been the only one left behind (which was a cruel and unfair thing to think, she was not the only person who loved Kash. She just didn't care right now). She crumpled to her knees and Socks climbed into her lap. After a long moment she began to pet him, no longer the little kitten she'd held out to Kash last Christmas. There was no peace in the silence, but she could not continue to rage with Socks holding her down. The moment he left that place, it would all rise up again. So for now, she sat there in the mess she'd made, staring at nothing, her blood running into his fur.

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"If I thought anyone could manage, it'd be you," Jag answered, glad that they were whispering, for the tightness in his throat. He paused, then admitted, "Sometimes I wonder how long it would take to build itself back up, if I burned it all to the ground."

Or if they actually turned the whole thing to ash and rubble if it would just stay that way, and then what would all of them do? But that thought did nothing to take away how much she wanted to rip it all down.

Snow lifted and offered the hand that she could not before when he'd wanted to bandage her. "Would you...?"

"Yeah. Yeah," Jag confirmed after a second, straightening up to reach out for the disinfectant, and a gauze pad. "Probably gonna hurt a bit," he warned her, and set to cleaning and disinfecting the wound. "You probably ought to ice it, too."

There used to be a bag of long expired peas in the freezer at the squat, for just that sort of situation.

Snow only made a gesture that was part shrug, part nod. The pain didn't matter. If anything, she welcomed the distraction of it. If it hurt enough, perhaps she might forget how much her heart hurt beating behind her ribs.

She hissed once, and then bore the rest stubbornly in silence.

Jag worked efficiently, then wrapped the scraped knuckles. He released her hand when he was done, and looked up to meet her gaze. "Ice?"

Snow nodded and, following a rare impulse she didn't understand, she kissed his cheek.

Snow was not well-practiced in giving kisses. Even with Regina, they were rare. Even though it was not a complicated thing, lips on skin, it did take practice and experience to do it nicely. The gesture was clumsy, made by a girl who was entirely unused to displays of affection, having had so little practice spending it or wanting to do so on anyone. She didn't know anything about being soft and pliant and warm. All the same, she had to do it, because the feeling inside her was too big for words.

In other words, it was very much a little girl's kiss.

Knowing she had not done that right even as she pulled away, she lowered her eyes.

The kiss surprised Jag (he hardly expected that sort of display of affection from Snow), but already she was looking down, as if she'd done something wrong. It made his heart ache quietly, and he reached out to pet the cat in her lap, then brush his hand on her wrist, a touch he hoped conveyed the fact that it was all right, and she had nothing to feel embarrassed about.

"Come on," he said quietly, it is all right warm in his voice. He was shite at saying things, but sometimes, you could express them without saying them.

He wasn't getting to his feet just yet, just in case she wasn't ready to move after all. They could stay on the floor a while longer, if needed. He'd fetch the ice and bring it back, if necessary.

Snow's eyelids flickered once, twice, and at the third time she managed to look back up.

Whether or not she could stand, though, that was another daunting task entirely. There was something about getting up from the floor here and now that accepted she had to move on, had to somehow keep being here without Kash. She did not want to. She could not do it.

She gathered Socks up in her arms and bunched her muscles, attempting to wobble to her feet.

Jag slowly got to his own feet, picking up the medical supplies. Then he transferred them all to one arm, and held his hand out to Snow, if she wanted it.

Shifting the cat into the crook of one arm, she took the offered hand and stood uncertainly. She looked, not dizzy on her feet, but confused by it. That she could be upright and not continuing to break things. That she could hurt so much and not be dying.

Not knowing how to give voice to any of that, though, she only stupidly mumbled, "Thank you."

Jag squeezed her hand with a small smile, then said, "Let me just..." with a tilt of his head towards the supplies he was carrying. He let go of her hand and stepped away towards Daryl, leaving the stuff with him for now. Jag would come back later and take it back upstairs. Right now, ice. He moved back to Snow and held his hand out to her, in case she wanted it back.

He was very aware of how much touch could do for someone. He was also very aware that it didn't work that way for everyone. He had to offer, really.

Normally, Snow would have refused, however politely or rudely as she could manage for the person in question. But these circumstances were not normal, and she needed to be anchored by something.

She took his hand.

[EP] The eye of the storm

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