#p: jem002

[isaacapatow]

@ijemmaokafor * casa ijemma

It only took a couple of minutes to walk from the meeting room to Jemma's, but Ike stayed curved over and next to her like she was a rosebush climbing up his archway trellis the whole time. He didn't say anything, shuffling until they were in her room and the door was shut before he bent down to untie and take off his boots, drop his jacket on top of them, and then slide over to sit down on her bed. Unlike his place, Jemma had actual seating available, but Ike didn't bother with it, assuming best friend familiarity.

"Well," he sighed, heavy and long and with a doleful look at her that was the same, "that was a shitshow. Easy on the show and heavy on the shit."

[isaacapatow]

end.

"Hell no I didn't read them, I thought they were some weird evangelical thing 'cause the bible camp kids all bought them at the book fair every year......in retrospect, I apologize for ever likening you to them. Your company is more like...a Sunday morning drive."

She listened to his very reasonable protestation that she'd be alright without him. She'd be wrecked, actually, but she understood his point. And correcting him in any convincing way would require her to think through the idea of losing him and no--

He was touching her face now in a way that swirled her up inside. She'd never had a friendship shaped like the one she had with Ike. It was appropriate--she'd never known a person like Ike--but it brought with it all sorts of emotions she didn't have names for.

But before she could put the thought together, he was tucking himself into bed.

"Slumber party? For real?! Oh man, but we haven't even broke out the ouija board or played truth or dare yet."

She pushed off the bed and to start settling things for the night. Her domestic routines weren't all that complicated--turned off the main light and flicked on her desk lamp, brushed her teeth, put on pajamas. When she was done, she climbed back into bed, pulled the blanket up over both of them, and tried to smooth the cowlick at the crown of his head. "Good night, Sunday drive."

[isaacapatow]

"Chicken soup for the -- jeeeeezus. I forgot all those existed." Ike chortled, pushing his chin against Jemma's nails. "Remember how they had all kinds of them after the first one got popular?" He affected an ostentatious infomercial tone, announcing, "Chicken Soup for the Student! Chicken Soup for the Janitor! Chicken Soup for the Jack Russell with one ear that stands up and one ear that flops down!" He crinkled his nose. "I never actually read any of 'em. I'd be surprised if you did."

As opposed to just knowing the reference, just like him. Between them they were a repository for all kinds of junk and nonsense, ping-ponging through pop culture touchstones like they were playing for money.

(Although that just reminded Ike of that crucial, damning game of beer pong with Mayra. He wasn't doing so good not thinking about her, all told.)

Jemma distracted him with comforting words, love repeated and reflected back, and Ike smiled up at her some more, reaching to touch just below her chin and trail his fingers down to her throat. "You'd be okay without me," he said, and then tacked on quickly, "ahhhhh-ah-ah, no, don't scold me -- I don't mean it that way. I know you'd be gutted, same as me if it was you. But you'd make it, because we worked hard to get here, and life is fucking precious. You and me both know that, and you know I'd want you to be okay. Even without me."

He shifted to sit up, snorting at Jemma's configuration of who was Mulder and who was Scully, and said, "I didn't think it would go any other way. But you get good lines too! Late seasons, not early." Joke dispatched, Ike gazed at Jemma for a moment, reaching to touch her hair, then her cheekbone, then her chin. Landmarks, constellations. A way home no matter what the Brookes ranch had in store.

One more long, soft stare to set her image, and then Ike was toeing off his socks, taking off his belt to fling it into the corner onto the bundle of his boots and jacket. He gave Jemma a smacking kiss on her cheek, with an audible mwah, and then scrabbled his long legs under her sheets, bunching one of her pillows under his head. "I'm going to bed now. G'night!"

"You help," she rushed to say. Her hand was still close enough to his face that she reached just a little further to scratch her blunt nails across his prickly jaw. "Just laying like this is like...what were those books? Chicken soup for the soul? I can feel my batteries charging back up."

She was quiet for a second, then used her hold on his cheeks to tilt his face up to look at her. "I love you back. And thank you. I know you mean it just for the sake of it, but I also know..." You don't want to repeat Ginny's mistake. "You help so much, Ike. Don't know what I'd do without you."

She didn't like his casual insistence that he was invincible, but it wasn't an argument worth making, 'cause he had the stats to back it up. "You know in that configuration, I'm Mulder, right? No way in hell Ermano believes in aliens. I would be the conspiracy theorist and Ermano would get all the good lines like, 'please explain to me the scientific nature of the whammy.'"

They were laughing now, but she still felt nervous. Still didn't want to let him go. It didn't matter that he went out there every day and risked his neck. Sending him off on a long trip felt like welcoming trouble.

[isaacapatow]

"To be clear," Ike said, waving his fingers in the air as emphasis, "I don't think Cole would mess-mess with Cass. Just usual shithead stuff like how he was tryinna get a rise outta you, Ijemma." He didn't really use her full name much, but sometimes Ike liked to indulge himself. Call his bestie by her deluxe name instead of the everyday one or the bite-sized one. It felt especially fitting at this kind of juncture, where formality brought the message home.

He subsided into a near-purr as Jemma let her fingertips roam all over his skull and hopped back to the one of Ike's wild propositions she had siphoned out as most plausible. "The opposite of arrogant for you is modest," Ike hummed. "Interesting. See, I woulda gone with Cole getting in people's faces and Sol preferring to hang back. Cole sees a chance and takes it, and Sol waits to follow the rules. Cole has something to prove and Sol thinks he has something to prove."

Jemma wistfully wished they could halt things where they were, and Ike said, "I know. But you'd get bored, Juju, yeah, even you who likes to get up and have the same morning routine every day and the same bedtime routine every night. If we..." Ike trailed off for a few moments, the word cult doing a few leisurely laps around his brain. "I don't think we'd ever qualify for that," he said, eventually, and reached to rub his hand over her knee. "I'm sorry you're sad. I wish I could help but we both know mourning's gotta go its own way." Ike caught her hand, kissing Jemma's fingertips and gazing solemnly up at her. "I love you. Don't forget that. I'm always around."

Ike grinned at her exhortation that he stay safe on the trip to the ranch, saying, "Ahhh, Jem, you know me -- I'm indestructible. I won't let anything happen to the Brookeses and I won't leave you to figure out a workable dynamic with Little Big Boss. Though if it comes down to it, I suggest a sorta Mulder & Scully situation. That would be fun for everyone to watch."

This damn stubborn man, refusing himself particular kinds of happiness 'cause he figured it was sparing someone else the pain of caring about him. He was more like Sol than he realized sometimes. It's probably why they swung around each other like two moons, too close together.

All Ike's proposed theories were solid, except for the girl theory. Guy like Sol in his younger days would be reasonable enough to let the girl decide and gullible enough to assume that meant his brother was the rightful victor.

"I could see that last one being the case. Or something close to it. Cole's certainly as arrogant as Sol is modest. And GOD, I don't even want to think about him messing with Cass--'cause I'll be honest, council responsibilities get fucked, I'd let Sol beat his ass. Let Cass beat his ass, for that matter."

A big, unexpected sigh tumbled out of her and she closed her eyes as she felt for all the subtle bumps and ridges of her friend's skull. "I know deep down that it takes all kinds and that if we were overly picky about who we let in we'd be a fucking cult. But sometimes I halfway wish we could just pause things right like they are for a minute."

Since she'd stumbled out of the densest part of her grief fog, time seemed to be moving twice as fast.

"You're going on this trip with the Brookeses, yeah? You gonna keep your ass safe and sound? Don't leave me here up shit creek, 'cause you know I can't good cop/bad cop with Ermano like you do."

[isaacapatow]

Far be it from Isaac Apatow to resist or protest when Jemma ordered him to rest his dizzy head in her lap. This was something they'd fallen into fast, once she'd sussed out Ike's susceptibility to being offered a certain brand of no-nonsense, no-frills affection. Being able to curl up against Jemma with her playing with his hair was pretty much the pinnacle.

And Jemma further had a way of untangling Ike's often snarled-up feelings and responses to those feelings in clear, firm language without being either too rough or too gentle with him. Ike had no idea if she used this method with anybody else -- he liked to think he was the only Goldilocks in her life who she made everything just right for -- but he didn't waste time perseverating over it. They were best friends for a reason and right now that reason was Jemma telling him that he did his job in their little world commendably but he ran his mouth to a point where people had trouble sifting out what they should take with more import.

Until Ike dropped it on them like a ten-ton bomb, anyhow. He let his eyes drift shut as Jemma stroked his eyebrow, the way Ike used to do with his dog Bisou on cold nights. "Her beautiful heart," he mumbled, all the fight draining out of him with welcome suddenness. "We've got enough to be scared of these days. And I got no inclination to add on to what Mayra's already got haunting her."

A good enough decision. Ike was fairly certain Jemma would let him have it without insisting he go some other direction. At least he hoped she would.

The newest town drama provided a convenient reason to stop caring about his own feelings and Ike snorted, making himself more comfortable. "I didn't hear much before I hauled Reznik the Older in front of the Council," he said, "but Sol's not stoked that he's here and for someone to make Sol cut them off? That would have to be big." Ike tutted his tongue against his front teeth in thought. "Maybe they fought over a woman. Maybe they were rivals in the ring. Maybe for a while Cole had to raise Sol and shit went haywire. Maybe Sol's always been in Cole's shadow and that's why he's made his personality the complete fuckin' opposite of Cole's to the brink of it being a detriment to him. Who knows?"

Ike snuggled down some more, nudging his head against Jemma's fingers to get her stroking him again. "All's I know is -- Cole came strolling up in here like King Shit and expecting Sol to fall in line, which he didn't. And if I know the way that fuckleheads like Cole work, that only means he'll be going double-time to figure out a way under Sol's skin, to reassert himself or to prove himself. And Sol's gonna resist for a while -- longer, if Cole screws with Cass in any way -- but he's gonna cave, he won't be able to help it. If Cole puts the right pressure on the right guilt nodes?" Ike huffed, pulling his knees up tighter. "Sol's gonna be doing an interpretive dance to He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother soon enough."

Ike and Mayra had a fight. Ike and Mayra got attacked by walkers. Ike and Mayra overshared their respectively fucked up pasts and, like the similarly walled-up folks they were, they got awkward about it.

She didn't like the way he said that last part, like he was too aware of the bits of himself still tethered to the desperate, lonely twenty-year-old he once was.

She scooted back on her bed a bit more til she wasn't half-turning to see his face. He was staring hard at the tip of his finger and she didn't make a sound, just reached over and unwound the makeshift tourniquet. Rubbed at it to get the blood flowing.

"Head. Lap," she ordered, pointing first at him, then at her own legs. She needed the contact just as much she wanted to provide it and maybe he knew that. Maybe that's why he acquiesced so quickly. His head was a heavy, grounding comfort to her. His hair was fine and straight and more salt than pepper between her fingers.

"It's not just that you're nearing sixty, babe, it's who you are around here. You're real good at what you do. People turn to you for things. So yeah, it was probably disorienting for her to hear proof--in her own language--that you struggled like that. I mean, you make no secret of your past, but you talk so. damn. much," she punctuated each word by gently clawing her fingertips into his scalp, "that shady past you allude to probably doesn't sound all that real. But those specifics you gave her? That's fucking real."

Her haphazard head scritching gentled until she was just dragging her last three fingertips across his eyebrow.

"Real's scary. Real will break your beautiful heart. But if that's not the point, then what the fuck is?"

She let that hang in the air for a minute, less expecting an answer than wondering if a satisfying one even existed. And then a little mischief pricked at her.

"Okay--theories on what the hell the beef between the Reznik brothers is, because I wanna know for responsible reasons, but I also want the tea so bad."

It's what Ginny would have wanted.

[isaacapatow]

Ike groaned when Jemma repeated Cole's dumbass description of Mayra, pleading, "God, don't remind me of that. What a dipshit he is. I can't believe somebody like that's related to Sol, of all people." Jemma had more salient questions than all that, though, and Ike groaned some more and covered his face with his hands, splitting his fingers to stare at her with one eye when he admitted, "...I don't even fucking know. I never got around to asking her."

Which was exactly as inexcusable as Renee and Ermano had found it to be, and Ike turned over on his side with one fist propped glumly against his cheek as he slowly dragged his stockinged toes against Jemma's floor. "I know you wouldn't narc on me," he mumbled. "But I dunno how much influence I've got on Mayra these days. Hell, she fought me all the way back to the damn hole. She woulda fought more if we didn't get attacked by a couple of damn walkers that proved my point for me about how dangerous it was for her to be out there alone, with nobody knowing."

Ike started picking at a thread on the coverlet as Jemma made her gentle, prying inquiries, squinching his face in reluctance. It was easier not to look at Jemma's familiar, fond face when he answered, so he focused on the fabric pattern like it held the secrets to the universe. Or maybe to Mayra.

"We had a talk. She was ... pissed at me about Sol going out with Ginny, which, I mean." Ike tugged the thread until he could wind it tight around his fingertip. "She was right to be pissed, in the end. But we talked, she talked, she told me about some shit that went down when she was young, you can guess the kind of stuff a girl like her's been through."

He wasn't going to say it aloud, but Ike considered Jemma the same as him when it came to their abilities to extrapolate, analyze, come up with something in the ballpark of what other people had suffered. Those soft skills only got strengthened, these days, when it was a matter of survival making split-second decisions. He figured she'd guess -- accurately -- at what he was vaguely alluding to.

The tip of his finger was a cold purple now. "Anyhow. She shared with meeee, so she wanted me to share with heeeerrrrr, so I told her how I used to fuck for money. Or drugs or a bed or whatever." Ike rolled his eyes, never liking to mention this much. "I dunno. I wish I hadn't. She didn't really know what to say which isn't weird, because I'm staring down the barrel of fucking sixty, Juju. There's nobody who looks at me and can grok that once upon a time I was twenty and desperate and alone."

Mayra was something of an anomaly in Jemma's experience with Ike. She knew he had an aching little heart down in there, just as needy as anyone else's for caring and affection. And why wouldn't it be Mayra that figured out how to tap into it, delightful balance of sass and substance that she was?

"Hence...iced mocha princess." She nodded in understanding. "Got it. Wait, so did she actually bust the hole in the wall herself? Was it already fucked up or something? Shit, is our wall rotting?"

They were important questions, but not important at the moment. Not really.

"You wanna protect her, huh? I mean, you don't have to worry about me, I'm just relieved to know it wasn't some kind of attack. Better Mayra making the hole than Cole. And I trust you have more sway in convincing her not to do stupid shit than the council at large."

There wasn't anything Ermano or Renee or Salem or even herself could say to Mayra that was more effective than what Ike would say.

"What else is going on though? Something with Mayra? You been kinda off lately, and I know it's not just on account of Ginny."

[isaacapatow]

The minute Jemma sat down Ike reached for one of her hands, holding it while she talked and pinching the middle knuckle of each finger in turn. Forefinger to pinkie and back down the row again, feeling the little knobs of bone between the pads of his own forefinger and thumb, eased into the rhythmic comfort of it.

"Everyone wants to call you sweetheart," he murmured, lifting his gaze to meet hers with a slight sidelong smile. "But you know what assholes like him are like, probably better'n anybody here does. I could feel the steam coming off you, that's for sure, but that's only 'cause I know you so well." He pinched her middle finger a touch harder. "Next time do it. Slap him right across the face. He'll either salute or try to kiss you right there'n then."

Ike nodded at Jemma's acknowledging Cole's purported experience with livestock, because, well. That was Jemma. Always zooming out in her head to take in the whole picture and see where to plug in the most annoying of new arrivals where they could do the most good. "It's gonna be a time," Ike said, thinking of Cole and Bea working together. "But you know me. I love watching people getting shackled together and having to find common ground. That shit's entertaining as all hell."

He couldn't avoid Jemma's next topic, though, and the truth was that Ike knew it was coming. He could've headed off to his own place but he'd wanted, inarticulately, for Jemma to know there was something afoot and to poke him about it, and bless her, she did exactly that. Ike squeezed her hand in his and then flopped down on his back, bringing his hands up to make paws against his chest, blinking at the ceiling.

"It was Mayra," he said. "It was her super secret little way to pop out to the waterfall for, I dunno. Zen baths like she's one'a them fuckin snow monkeys. I only found out about it just now when I caught her outside."

Their last long conversation had been…not terrible by any means, but not satisfying. Jemma was a “don’t go to bed angry” sort of person, didn’t like leaving a bunch of loose feelings out there. But Ike needed that sometimes. And she was too tired and missed him too much to pull at any of those scabs, so she plopped onto the bed beside him.

“I don’t normally feel a desire for violence, but every time he called me sweetheart, ooh, I wanted to slap his smart little mouth right off his face.” She knew Ike wouldn’t begrudge that. Hell, he’d probably been staring at her, eyes like saucers every time Cole used the pet name, waiting for a reaction. “The livestock experience though…that’s big. That legitimately solves a problem.”

Bea was gonna be happy. Bea was gonna eat him alive, but she was gonna put his knowledge to use first.

“What I really wanna know about is that hole in the wall. ‘Cause usually, when Ermano gets all ‘official investigation’ and you think it’s unnecessary, you just watch with a laugh. But you,” she emphasized the word by poking him in the chest. “You really don’t want him looking into it. What the hell is that all about?”