[center][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/301690986252206080/379370272190496768/Jez.gif[/img] [img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/301690986252206080/379378144672743424/Zach.gif[/img] [h3][color=#bd71e8]"Prepare for trouble..[/color][color=0076a3]..and make it double!"[/color][/h3][/center] [hr] It was early in the morning. Well before the morning announcement went off. Zachary was snugly asleep in his bed when he could hear a knock at his door, followed by someone gently whispering. [color=#bd71e8]“Yohooooooooo…”[/color]. In response, the young man was roused from his slumber. Groggily, he forced himself to sit up from the bed and turn his head towards the door. A moment passed before he yawned and pushed himself up and off the bed, then he sauntered towards the door like a zombie before it discovered a meal. [color=0076a3]“Hello?”[/color] he called out. Zachary opened the door. [color=0076a3]“Oh, hi there…[s]OPENING[/s].”[/color] [color=#bd71e8]“Yea.”[/color] Jezebel scratched the back of her head. She was dressed in jeans and a bomber jacket instead of her ridiculous clown get up. Typically she only dressed like that during a night of carnage, but that wasn’t the case this time. [color=#bd71e8]“Like, did you want to get something to drink with me?”[/color] Zachary took a moment to take the sight in, obviously a bit surprised at her clothing. For someone who wasn't fond of clowns, he ironically had come to feel more comfortable seeing her in costume as opposed to something else. When he realized he had been staring for a couple of seconds, he quickly flushed a bit red in embarrassment. [color=0076a3]"Oh, uh, of course."[/color] he answered, trying his best to pull off a composed smile. Despite his awkwardness, Zach seemed blue. Jezebel returned Zachary’s smile with one of her own. [color=#bd71e8]“Bitchin’!”[/color] [hr] The break room had become a popular hang out for the two. They spent more time in here than the dining room. [color=#bd71e8]“So like.”[/color] She sighed. [color=#bd71e8]“I realize I’ve been acting a little weird recently, and it’s just because this place has totally been getting in my head.”[/color] She took a sip of her coffee before looking at Zachary. [color=#bd71e8]“That was kind of uncool, but like, I thought Baldwin junior was going to totally outfox Davis this time. Turns out it all lead to more misery.”[/color] She set down her cup and folded her arms. [color=#bd71e8]“I probably should have told you something earlier, I’m sorry about that.”[/color] There was a pause of about five seconds before Zachary opened his mouth to speak. [color=0076a3]"I understand. I don't think it's possible to not have the weight of this place become unbearable, at times."[/color] almost in unison with Jez, he found himself taking a sip of his coffee, and listened to her as she continued with a hollow smile. [color=0076a3]"I'm sorry things didn't pan out as hoped. But you can never truly know just how something is going to go before it happens, or how futile it really is."[/color] he found his hand slowly caressing his eye patch. [color=0076a3]"They say hindsight is 20/20, after all."[/color] Zach coughed, then took a quick sip of his coffee. [color=0076a3]"In any case, there's no need to apologize, not to me."[/color] Jezebel placed a hand on her head. [color=#bd71e8]“You’re too nice, you know that?”[/color] She pulled her hand away from her head sharply. [color=#bd71e8]“But even so. Like…”[/color] She snorted. [color=#bd71e8]“Zachary you’re always listening to me and doing what I want to do. There’s no way you can be as calm as you’re pretending to be. There’s totally something under your skin.”[/color] She placed her hands on her hips. [color=#bd71e8]“Like, how could there not be? Last night was so uncool. But you can share that with me if you’d like.”[/color] [color=0076a3]"I've..."[/color] Zachary struggled to think of the words he wanted to use. His expression darkened. "I'm no good at hiding things like this, am I?" he gave an empty laugh as he tried to gather his thoughts. He opened and closed his mouth more than once, but it was not until the fourth attempt did he manage to speak anything. [color=0076a3]“Haven’t I been… rather useless?”[/color] [color=#bd71e8]“Like, no?”[/color] With a sigh, Jezebel walked over to the stove. They had boiled extra water for the coffee, and hadn’t used it all. The clown turned the heat back on. [color=#bd71e8]“You might feel useless, but like, you don’t [i]cause[/i] problems.”[/color] She rubbed her eyes. [color=0076a3]"...don’t cause problems...?"[/color] Zachary softly repeated that line to himself. [color=#bd71e8]“You took out Alexandria and junk right? I only heard about it, but they so couldn’t have done that without you.”[/color] [color=0076a3]“That’s not even…”[/color] [color=#bd71e8]“Even!”[/color] Jezebel turned off the stove and carried the pot to the table. [color=#bd71e8]“Meanwhile, a girl I got mad at totally committed suicide last night. Maybe I need to take a chill pill, but nothing I do works out.”[/color] She shrugged her shoulders. [color=#bd71e8]“But you’re not mad at me, so like, I must be doing something right.”[/color] The archer set his cup down, but found himself staring into it, almost as if in a daze. He was vividly recalling the final moments of the fight that cost him his eye. [color=0076a3]"But I did cause problems. Had I not been such an idiot and encourage that dumb stunt during the Night of Carnage, maybe more people would be alive right now."[/color] he breathed as his eye tilted upwards towards Jezebel. [color=0076a3]"Why would I be mad at you? I couldn’t be. Not when you were right, and I was wrong. I was just some idiot with a hero complex, and look what it cost me."[/color] Zachary's hand once again came up to his eyepatch. His expression was sullen. [color=0076a3]"With a bow... at the one thing I was good at, I'll never be the same. Losing an eye would mean nothing to me if that weren't the case. But because it is, it means [i]everything[/i]."[/color] he sighed. [color=0076a3]"Yet even such a sacrifice might have been worth it, if only to save someone. That's what I thought."[/color] he stopped for a minute, then scoffed, likely at himself, before continuing. [color=0076a3]"But it didn't. It was in vain. A completely pointless, stupid move. I lost my eye, and nobody was saved. Krista threw her life away and invalidated everything that happened that night."[/color] [color=#bd71e8]“Like, all the nights are starting to blend together for you huh?”[/color] She dropped a washcloth in the pot of water and sat across from Zachary. [color=#bd71e8]“I mean.”[/color] she sighed. [color=#bd71e8]“I know that you shouldn’t say bad things about the dead, but I’m a little mad at Krista. If she took her life because of me, I’m totally cool with letting that haunt me for the rest of my life. Maybe I deserve that kind of guilt.”[/color] She dropped her fists on either side of the bowl. Zachary shook his head. [color=0076a3]“I don’t believe you do.”[/color] he smiled wistfully. [color=0076a3]“That kind of burden is the privilege of the contemptible alone.”[/color] he quieted down after saying this. [color=#bd71e8]“Like, I’m glad you feel that way. But she just locked herself away! There’s no suicide note, no goodbye, no anything! Gag-me-with-a-spoon! She’s making you and everyone who cared about her suffer, and that says a lot more about her than it does you Zachary!”[/color] She folded her arms and pouted. [color=#bd71e8]“Like, I’m ashamed to admit that I probably wouldn’t have been so hard on her if I attributed your sacrifice with her survival…”[/color] Then she fret her brow. [color=#bd71e8]“And that’s why you shouldn’t feel useless Zachary. I’ve hurt a lot of people, and killing myself would totally solve all of my problems. But it would just cause you problems, and I don’t want that.”[/color] She tightened her arms around herself. [color=0076a3]“And I’ll admit that I am also a bit mad that she did that.”[/color] he breathed, smiled to himself, and then shook his head after a short pause. [color=0076a3]“No, not just that.”[/color] he made sure they had eye contact as he spoke. “[color=0076a3]I think after that, I’ve come to despise her. I think I really hate her, and I want so bad to blame her for everything. But the fact is, what happened to me wasn’t her fault. She never asked for my help. That was something I decided on doing. A high-risk low-reward gamble only idiots would take. Only makes sense that the house would win and I’d be left with nothing. I won’t--no, I can’t believe it when you say I’m not useless. Not until I’ve done something I can wholeheartedly say was useful to someone.”[/color] He exhaled in such a way it was hard to tell if it was supposed to be a sigh or a laugh, but continued. [color=0076a3]“...But I think I feel the same way as you, honestly. About the easy way out, that is. I wouldn’t want to cause you to worry too much, so I can’t simply throw my life away like her, even if I feel almost redundant.”[/color] [color=#bd71e8]“Everyone, is important, to someone.”[/color] Jezebel inhaled. [color=#bd71e8]“But like, maybe we can’t be mad at her. I totally didn’t have everyone’s best interests in mind when I first came to this killing game. But then I met you, everyone else..”[/color] She chuckled. [color=#bd71e8]” Life’s about more than just surviving now. A shame it went the opposite way for her.”[/color] She pulled the wet rag out of the bowl in front of her. [color=#bd71e8]“I totally didn’t want to talk about yesterday when I came and got you. I wanted to show you something, and only you.”[/color] [color=0076a3]"...I suppose it wasn't the most pleasant topic to bring up."[/color] he admitted. She plastered the damp rag over her face. [color=#bd71e8]”What lies under the makeup!”[/color] Her voice was muffled by the wet cloth being pulled over her face. Zachary was nearly about to ask what Jezebel was doing before she answered the question for him. He wasn't sure how to feel about it, though. On one hand, he really did want to see how she looked without the usual getup. But on the other... [color=0076a3]"Let say, hypothetically, that I somehow forgot that the makeup wasn't just your skin, and that I was somehow not also weirded out by that fact. How would you feel?"[/color] he asked. [color=0076a3]"Hypothetically, that is."[/color] Jezebel froze, cloth still over her face. [color=#bd71e8]“You totally didn’t say that.”[/color] She laughed before scrubbing her face. [color=#bd71e8]“I don’t do this for just anybody. I totally stay away from warm places, and like, I check myself in the mirror frequently to make sure I don’t have any runs.”[/color] After a bit more scrubbing, she threw the cloth to the side, which was now covered in loose makeup. As for Jezebel’s face, it was amazing what could be hidden with makeup. Her features looked more chiseled and didn’t have the round appearance that they did before. There were also a trio of beauty marks near the corner of her left eye. [color=#bd71e8]“So yea.”[/color] She said with a sigh. [color=#bd71e8]“This is me.”[/color] Zachary took a few moments to take the sight in, as he tried desperately to think of what he wanted to say. This was an important event, that much he was sure of, so that's why his brain more or less short-circuited. Hopefully she wouldn't take his lengthy silence the wrong way. [color=0076a3]"Uh, yeah, I see that."[/color] he finally managed. [color=0076a3]"...I'm happy you decided to show me how you look. It means a lot to me."[/color] [color=#bd71e8]“Zacharyyyyyyy!”[/color] Jezebel sighed, then chuckled. [color=#bd71e8]“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. This is something I’ve been hiding for a long time. Like, ten whole years. Expecting you to know anything about it would be totally crazy.”[/color] She pushed the bowl off to the side. [color=0076a3]“W-what? I’m sorry if I was supposed to recognize you or something, I never really looked into you before we met here. For no reason in particular, mind you. Not because I am afraid of clowns or anything silly like that, haha.”[/color] he nervously chuckled. [color=0076a3]“So… what’s the deal?”[/color] [color=#bd71e8]“I wasn’t always the Infinite Trickster. When I was eighteen years old, I was totally learning my craft. Like, the places I performed were small time. Kids parties mostly. The calamity had happened a few years ago, so there wasn’t a lot of disposable income lying around. People were more interested in filling their stomachs than laughing.”[/color] Jezebel scratched the back of her head, only momentarily averting her eyes from Zachary. [color=#bd71e8]“I was a bit different back then. I totally attributed wealth with success. Like, if I was rich, that would make me happy. So I’d do anything for money. So like, some up and coming Governor sees one of my performances. He wants a private show. It wasn’t a lot of money, but I thought it was at the time. He wanted me to put on a show in his hotel room. I brought all of my stuff to the hotel, but before I got set up, he told me that the performance he wanted wasn’t like my clown one. He had a clown fetish, I guess. He totally wanted a lap dance. I didn’t say anything, I wanted the money.”[/color] Jezebel adjusted her collar. [color=#bd71e8]“So I’m. Yea. Basically a stripper clown at this point. He kept telling me junk and stuff. He was really good with words. Like, I felt beautiful doing this for him. Any time he wanted more, I gave in. And when I hesitated, like, he just pulled out more money. But like, I did have limits. I wasn’t going to sleep with him. That kinda made him mad. I mean, I thought he was mad.”[/color] She was rubbing her chin. [color=#bd71e8]“So like, as it turns out, the whole thing was staged. It was all for some website where they film desperate people doing stupid things. Totally not cool. It became a pretty popular video too. Had a few of my friends tell me about it. People told me I should be ashamed of myself, or they just made remarks about my ass.”[/color] She hugged herself. [color=#bd71e8]“I moved. I was, like, super lucky that they never got my name. As I got more famous I kept my face in makeup as often as I could. Like, who would want their kid to be around a stripper clown? That’s totally the kind of junk that sinks celebrities.“[/color] [color=0076a3]“...Degenerate."[/color] was the first thing that came out of Zachary's mouth after Jezebel finished speaking. [color=#bd71e8]“A-am I grody to the max?.“[/color] He looked away, but there was clearly a scowl on his face, and he had tightened his hand into a fist. It was clear as day that he was upset, and upon realizing how he looked, his face partially tinted red in embarrassment. Turning his gaze back up to the 'naked' Jezebel, he scratched the back of his head. [color=0076a3]"Oh, uh, sorry."[/color] he apologized. [color=0076a3]"It's just hearing that kinda pissed me off.”[/color] his eyes drifted away from Jezebel for another moment. [color=0076a3]"Though I imagine it was more upsetting to be put through something horrible like that.”[/color] he sighed. [color=0076a3]“...I hope that, minor complications like this death game aside, you haven’t been through too much trouble since then?”[/color] [color=#bd71e8]”I mean, like. I’ve always been very careful.“[/color] She hugged herself. [color=#bd71e8]”My visions been screwing up. The doctor said it was totally my blood pressure. I was going to get a little nip and tuck so that I didn’t have to hide my face anymore, do that while the doctors checked my vision.“[/color] Jezebel shrugged. [color=#bd71e8]”I can understand if you think I’m a degenerate though. Or petty. But uh.“[/color] She stood up. [color=0076a3]"...eh, what?"[/color] Zachary thought to himself, then understood what had happened. [color=0076a3]"Oh, no! Not you!”[/color] he waved his hands in panic. [color=0076a3]“Uh, I wasn't speaking about you at all. It was just something that slipped out when I thought about the kind of person who would exploit someone desperate like that, and to film it to boot."[/color] he clarified. He found himself rubbing his eyepatch, for some reason. [color=0076a3]"I don't think less of you after that at all, and I do appreciate you telling me that. It can't have been the most pleasant memory to bring up."[/color] But Jezebel kept walking. Only she swung around and sat directly beside Zachary [color=#bd71e8]”Well, that’s good to know. Thanks for listening to my junk.“[/color] She twiddled her thumbs. [color=#bd71e8]”Uh, heh.“[/color] She rolled her lower lip into her mouth. [color=#bd71e8]”Can I have a hug?“[/color] [color=0076a3][s]"I'd be right happy to!"[/s][/color] For some reason, he felt a sense of deja vu when she asked that. Zachary could think of a billion different things he would rather do than hug a stranger. It wasn't something he particularly cared for, and in fact, actively avoided when he could. So that is why, when asked, he said, [color=0076a3]"Of course."[/color] with no hesitation and gave the woman the hug she wanted.