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[handleyourshit]

  


This is Rosita.  I'll hit you back when I can.

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[hippie_ninja]

"Same thing you do, I thought," he shrugs. The glasses go into the cleaner, and he goes to gather the till. "I want a place we can go to if this place goes to hell. I also want a place we can all work on together, even if this place lasts. Something that's ours."

[handleyourshit]

"Not that," she says, but she smiles when she does. It's a nice story. A nice idea, a nice - future.

The smile fades because life is not a place for nice stories, but she's shaking her head.

"I meant what part of it do you want to do?"

[hippie_ninja]

That's a hard thing to answer. His real calling, the thing he's best at, isn't exactly needed.

"I want to make sure we have enough supplies." So he can go out, steal if he has to, barter if he can.

[handleyourshit]

She nods.

"Okay." She trusts him where she would trust few others to do that, to bring in enough and of the right things; it's easier here in ways it never was before. It's harder the same way.

"Anyone else I need to know about?"

[hippie_ninja]

He hums, thinking. "I told you about K and Drake, you know about Carver. Jacob and Dinah are up to you," although he'll push for Dinah a little bit. "I told you Vrenille gave me a key. I'm going to offer him one, too. Other than that? Nope."

[handleyourshit]

She nods, hesitating only a moment over the addition of Vrenille's name. But he's been good to them. She still doesn't count him as among their number, but he's definitely an ally. She can extend that much of a hand.

But: "Just the three of us to start. Until we know what we're working with." She needs a stretch to breathe before they start adding people. Needs to know it can actually work. Needs to know everyone is all in until it's real.

"Hopefully the three of us. Two if it has to be."

[hippie_ninja]

"When I asked Carver he seemed all in. He seemed glad." Which has Jesus thinking Carver needs this as much as Rosita and Jesus do.

[handleyourshit]

"I think so too," she admits. On both counts.

But - "He might be more attached to Grayson than to us. And you might not like the answers I get."

She cares about Carver more than she's willing to admit, but that's not all that matters in the end.

[hippie_ninja]

He nods. He knows; he's thought of that, too. It's possible that it doesn't even matter anymore who Carver is more attached to; vampires can control people.

"We'll handle it when we come to it."

[handleyourshit]

She rubs at the corner of her eye while she breathes out; she hates thinking about it. Hates that that has to be the answer, but she nods.

"Anyway. Point stands. Us, then we add people."

[hippie_ninja]

"Okay." The first sign, really, that he'll follow her lead even when he wants to do something else. But she has a good point, and anyway, it's not like they need a refuge set up right away. They can take their time.

[handleyourshit]

She nods.

Okay.

"I'll talk to Carver in the morning. We'll see what shakes out." She glances at Jesus.

"We good, J?"

[hippie_ninja]

It's not the first time they've ever argued, but before, they had Maggie or Rick making the decisions that one or the other had to abide by. Here, for the first time, it's just them.

He looks at her, calm but for a little touch of wariness that maybe he was too quick to relax. "Are we?"

[handleyourshit]

There's a line of tension in her that just won't quit these days; that she can't get to in order to ease, can't work out how to cut. She looks back at him, watching with a steady gaze.

"I am. You?"

[hippie_ninja]

He nods, relaxing a fraction. "Yeah. I'll just be glad when Carver's convinced."

[handleyourshit]

She watches him, watches that tension drain out of him, and feels a twinge of... something. She shifts her weight.

"What's -" Wrong, she starts to say, but maybe she doesn't want to hear the answer so she stops herself and shakes her head.

"Okay. I'd offer to walk home with you, but. It's the Down."

[hippie_ninja]

"It's fine," he's used to walking alone. "Unless you want to stay over tonight."

He doesn't care who sees him with a SIN Guard.

[handleyourshit]

Normally she would, just because she can, because she would take the suggestion as an invitation.

Now she almost asks do you want me to and isn't that something. She shakes her head.

"I don't think I should."

[hippie_ninja]

There's a fairly open door policy between them and he can't help but ask, "Because we had a fight?"

[handleyourshit]

She shakes her head.

"No. No, I don't think so."

They've fought before and it didn't unsettle her like she is now.

"I just feel... I don't know."

[hippie_ninja]

"Restless?" He looks at her carefully, wondering if it's just having old instincts set off, thinking the threat of another apocalypse might have crept near.

[handleyourshit]

"Always." The city is too tall, it presses in too close - it's too filled with people who are corpses that don't know it yet.

"This is... different, but it'll be okay. It'll pass."

[hippie_ninja]

He almost tells her then. He almost tells her how the dreams he has culminated in one panicked moment on a rooftop where he couldn't convince himself there hadn't been an outbreak, that people weren't pushing their way through the streets to evade something undead and ravenous.

It had taken him an hour to calm down enough to climb back down to the sidewalk.

He almost tells her. But he doesn't, because maybe this isn't the time, and maybe he doesn't know what to do about it yet.

"I'll pass," he says. "But if it doesn't, you know where I am."

[handleyourshit]

She doesn't consciously know that there's something there, something he doesn't tell her; there are plenty of things they don't tell each other and never will and it doesn't change anything, doesn't mean anything.

She presses her lips together and nods now, though. She wishes she'd said yes. She doesn't think she could have. She hates this.

"I do," she agrees. She does know. She lifts an arm in silent invitation.

[hippie_ninja]

It leaves him feeling he's failed somehow he can't put a finger on, reminiscent of old fears and old unknowns he hasn't had to worry about because he hasn't been close to anyone but Maggie in so very long.

It helps a little when she lifts that arm and he hugs her.