#jestiny when she’s in an empath contest and her opponent is john seed ig

[adelaidedrubman]

every fucking wednesday huh

tagged today by my dears @socially-awkward-skeleton and @direwombat to share something for wip day!

on this second nanowrimo wednesday (boo!) i give you a VERY rough excerpt of a hl&s scene i had envisioned in my mind’s eye for quite some time and banged out during the early november sprint before i immediately lost steam. very sloppy and very long (as always no pressure to Read All That) but here is a bit of jessie answering john’s questions about what is so special about fishing

“Everyone who actually has to live in the real world finds some way to kill all that angry static buzzing around in their brains. Something that sets off that click —” she snapped her fingers, then curled the hand back into a tense fist, “that shuts it all down to go peaceful for a while, without just making you feel dead. Lotta folk turn to drink. Real simple folk find the Lord. Me?”

She smiled, huffing out a gentle, breathy laugh.

“I go fishing.” The calm she had described now belatedly slipped into the even pace of her words. “Because everything about the world that pisses me off, fishing is the exact opposite. It’s a challenge. A battle of wits. You gotta work to catch a fish — real work, not just doing shit because somebody decided you gotta to take home a paycheck. With fishing, you gotta think, you gotta feel, you gotta use your hands. Stay alert to every little movement in the water. Know what’s gonna catch a fish’s eye, and have the skill to do it right. Know how to think like a fish. Appreciate ’em so you can lead ’em to their doom. Feel the tension in your muscles as you fight against a big one on the line. Your heart racing at the thrill of finally reeling it in. You’re using your brains and your body to wrestle for control with the fish — and if you do it right, you actually get it. It’s work, but it’s also —”

Her fist unclenched, tension easing from her shoulders.

“Calming,” she concluded, almost under her breath. “It’s so simple, but you’re accomplishing something. You’re part of the world around you, and for once it all means something. For once, it’s not a world I hate being in. It’s a world that’s just the sun beating down on your back, the wind in your hair, the sound of water beating against the dock. And beneath all the equipment and technique, it’s just you and the fish. It’s engaging, but peaceful. Fishing is —”

She looked down at her feet, her nose crinkling with an almost lazy, half-hearted irritation. “When I’m fishing, I feel real. I feel free,” she said softly, resolutely. “You wouldn’t fucking get that.”

John didn’t bother to hide the way he slowed his stride this time, nor the way he looked at her — drawing in a deep breath before coming to a complete stop, then turning to face her. He allowed himself a moment to rake his eyes along her profile, bask in the sense that he was truly seeing her for the first time — all that high-strung energy, all that barely contained fury packed into the tense ridge of her jaw, begging for release.

“I get it more than you would ever know,” he told her, heart pulsing an extra beat at the responding jitter of starlight glittering golden eyes towards him, before she stubbornly looked away again. Such a fragile flutter, a baby bird’s wings just beginning to beat against its breast.

Human — she was so undeniably human. In a way most people weren’t, in a way that managed to burrow itself down to that deepest, most difficult to reach part of his soul that was still soft and warm and a place where joy could spread. A place someone could nestle into and make a home. As if she’d snagged her fishing line at the depths of the lake, and managed to hook a long-lost sunken treasure.

“It’s exactly how I feel when I’m flying,” he explained, looking up towards the skies. “It requires complete concentration. If my focus slips for one moment — if there’s a single shift of the wind I fail to account for, I could go hurtling to my death. Just as easily, send every sin —” He caught himself, “...single person beneath me to theirs. I hold all that destruction within my grasp. I’m powerful. I’m in control. I’ve bested fate.”

He paused, finding only the slow building chirp of crickets filing the silence — for once, she wasn’t interrupting him, wasn’t rushing to fire back some clever insult. For once, she was hanging off his every word.

And looking at him. Hard as she tried to hide it — tucking her chin down and pressing her ear near towards her shoulder as she twisted at the waist to face him without facing him, the lingering of deepening tawny at the corner of her eyelids betraying her facade of detachment.

“But more than that…” He dared to take a step towards her, to turn himself so they were just a sliver closer to facing each other directly. “When I’m up in my plane, I feel —” A smile. One that felt natural spreading across his face. A smile just for her, the kind of smile he so rarely ever got to give — one given knowing that the person on the receiving end of it would actually understand why he was smiling. “Free. The world and every horrible thing in it is miles away from me — and if I want to, I never have to come down without bringing hellfire with me. When I’m up there, nothing can reach me.”

He dropped his voice to barely above a whisper. “I’m in control, but I’m free.” He let the revelation settle in the air between them — it was odd, he didn’t know if he would have ever been able to vocalize it so clearly, without her. “There are very few things in this world that can really give you that feeling.”

Jessie lifted her jaw — so strong, so proud, always. Imposing enough it had caused him all this time to overlook just how delicate her features really were. Those soft, rosy lips; her round little button nose; those wide doe eyes framed by darling doll lashes, taking him in so fully.

Yes, there it was — her eyes met his, she was looking at him.

It was just as he’d dared to hope. She saw him, she saw everything.

He was seen, and she kept looking.

She stepped closer. Her eyes trailed along his face at a leisurely pace. She finally blinked, slowly, but never looked away.

She inhaled, deeply, her eyes not wavering as her chest rose.

sending no pressure tags out to @unholymilf @belorage @florbelles @g0dspeeed @josephslittledeputy @afarcryfrommymain @poetikat @just-another-wasteland-merc @voidika @captastra @confidentandgood @deputyash @blissfulalchemist @shellibisshe @thedeadthree @nightbloodbix @ladyofedens-blog @miyabilicious @simplegenius042 @henbased @clicheantagonist @firstaidspray @strafethesesinners @quickhacked @jackiesarch @v0idbuggy @orionlancasterr @stacispratt @8bitpizzacoupons @strangefable @shallow-gravy @roofgeese @inafieldofdaisies @corvosattano + anyone with things to share + opt in here!

“That’s nothing like fishin’, dumbass,” she said decidedly, craning her neck back and shaking her head back and forth, as if in complete disbelief at just how ridiculous his statement was. “Flying planes is a dumb rich people hobby,” she dismissed with a wave of her hand, looking back over her shoulder at him as she walked past him in the vague direction he’d been leading them. “Those aren’t the fuckin’ same.”