#jolene & seth: 01

[lolipopchainscw]

Jolene & Seth || @all-cf-me

"You ever consider selling blood?" she asked. "Not donating, selling. The money sounds good, but what happens if you're patient zero for some new disease? Or worse, a cure? There's no way you'd ever see daylight again." It was a reoccurring nightmare for her: near-immortality becoming a snare, and she was trapped in some underground laboratory while scientists mined her blood for platelets and proteins. Maybe it was a childish worry. Maybe it was founded in the existence of a reluctant giver, a woman who was stripped of time, energy, and good health for the benefit of the masses.

[lolipopchainscw]

“Who cares about legacy when you’re dead?” she asked. “You know what we are when we’re six feet under?” The question weighed heavily on her mind as she entered her early thirties, yet still felt lost as a little girl. The only difference between her two selves, past and present, was that her mutation seemed to improve with age. It left her wondering about the future’s uncertainties, if making it six feet under was something she’d even be capable of. “Nothing,” she said, answering her own question. “And it doesn’t take long to become nothing. You get what, maybe five or six generations until you’re just a weird name scribbled in a photo album?” Jolene snorted in dark amusement, then stared into the bottom of her glass.

Seth knew his answer immediately, but he gave Jolene's question some space to breathe, brought the crystal glass of whisky up to take a drink as if lending it some thought: he'd found long ago that not everyone responded to the cocksure, face-value guy, and so Seth was sure to tailor the experience, made himself someone a bit more scavenger-cagey so Jolene felt she could let her metaphorical hair down. "Everything on and in my body has its price, darlin', but mine is fucking useless," Seth answered finally with a grin like a knife-edge, crunching on his ice. "So being the birthplace of the cure wouldn't be enough legacy for you, huh? Is there anywhere to go but down from there, anyway?"