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Post by NELL DOE DALE on Nov 9, 2011 22:54:36 GMT -5
Nell’s eyes kept darting back and forth between anything in the room and Josh, wondering if he was going to drop it now. He at least got a better reaction from her than anyone else would have gotten—she didn’t appreciate people who pushed into her life. But since her boyfriend was a big part of her life, she didn’t mind half as much as she would have otherwise. But it still made her uncomfortable, of course. ”If I accept mysef, that includes the good and bad,” she said quietly, playing with one of the game cards now to give her hands something to do. ”I’m not ready for that.” She wasn’t even sure there was any good in her. Mia had psychologically traumatized her with everything she did. It was true that if you heard something enough, you start to believe it. And Nell had only heard the bad things all her life. If she ever thought about it, she’d know all too well that she wasn’t as good as Josh apparently thought she was. She didn’t respond to Jos’s next statement, however, because she knew that arguing with him about the fact that he wasn’t a boring or bad person would just carry it out. And she wanted it to stop, to end all this. It didn’t matter how many times Josh told her that she was interesting, because she just blocked that out of her head. Don’t make me think.Nell was actually glad that Josh fell silent, and blinked up at him when he placed his hand on her arm. She smiled before moving on, ”Well, I just want to know that when I kick your butt, you will be forced to sit through several lame card tricks.” There wasn’t a reversal for if he won, because she was being playfully cocky, now sure that she’d gotten him to move on from his insistence about her intrigue.
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Even though she really enjoyed Josh’s company, she didn’t want him to put his life on hold just because she was fuzzy. For the weekend, she’d been lax, not even realizing that he’d cancelled any plans of his. But with the week came school, and that was something she didn’t want him to miss, even though he made it known that he wasn’t going anywhere. The idea of Josh missing school was like stepping foot into some kind of alternate universe, where the sky was green and the grass was cotton candy. She almost couldn’t believe that he was even considering it, but eventually she’d gotten him to leave. Not that she wanted to, because she wasn’t even sick of his company—she was more concerned about his education. And the fact that he was practically quarantining himself, isolated from the world. It wasn’t just her independent nature that wanted him to go out and get some sun. She could take care of herself while he was at school, it would only be a few hours, after all. Nell didn’t think anything too bad could happen in just a few hours. Especially now that she was feeling better. That was thanks to Josh, too. She was glad that she had someone to take care of her, even though it still made her off-balance.
She felt determined that morning,with only a minor headache and the familiar exhaustion, but altogether healthier. Her sweatshirt was doing a great job at keeping the chills at bay, too, and so she had great optimism. She was not going to be sick for long, and she was definitely not going to become like Tilly. She was feeling so good, in fact, that she was going to go down and get her mail. Nell didn’t think she’d be finding her boyfriend anywhere near the apartment, and so when she exited the door she balked. Nell blinked a few times. ”Josh,” she sighed, ”what are you doing?” She was fully prepared for one of those sarcastic ‘What does it look like?’ retorts that people loved to give, so she simply moved on. ”Are you planning to sit there all day?” she asked, actually curious as to whether he was thinking of just chilling out in the hallway. Well, clearly he was since that was what he was doing at that moment. But was he really going to stay there all day? I…don’t understand you.
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Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Nov 9, 2011 23:49:02 GMT -5
Joshua was beginning to get a little bored of just sitting out in the hallway after a little while but if the guy was anything, he was stubborn. He had told himself that he was not going to leave until Nell was better and he was sticking to that fact. She wanted him out of her apartment and at school? Fine, he'd leave the apartment. She had every right to kick him out (though she hadn't kicked him out) but she didn't have a right to tell him whether or not he could skip his classes. He'd already opted out of all of them for the week, it wouldn't do to just show up now. If Nell was really persistent then he'd just have to find something else to do until 'school' was over with and then show up at her apartment anyway. He hated skipping school for no reason but if Nell didn't think his reasoning was good enough then it couldn't exactly be helped. Damn it, I wish I'd brought my iPod. He wasn't a music freak but it would have been nice to have something to fill the silence. He could hear an argument going on a few doors down but it was more muffled sounds of yelling rather than discernible things. Occasionally he caught words such as 'bitch' or 'fuck' but this told him nothing except that these people were very, very angry at one another. He sighed and glanced around, gaze on the flashing buttons above the elevator telling what floor it was on. Five... six... seven.... it stopped before it got to the eighth and thus did not open. I wonder who was--
The sound of the door surprised him and Joshua glanced toward it. His brows arched over the top of the dark shades for a moment as he caught sight of his girlfriend, wondering what it was that she was doing. He wasn't going to get all demanding and tell her to get back into her apartment but he sincerely hoped she hadn't been trying to go off and frolic with the healthy people while he was out. They didn't need her illness--sorry, fuzziness--infecting the population just because she was bored. He would have given her a straight-up and honest answer to the first question if she hadn't continued onward. He smiled easily at her as if it was a wonderful day with shining sun and had virtually no problems. The effect was lessened by the fact that his eyes were not visible from behind the dark glasses. "That's the plan," he said cheerfully. "I've only got another--" Frowning, Joshua looked down at the gold Rolex on his wrist to discern what time it was, "three hours until my last class would be over for the Monday. Should be fun." He took the shades off and pocketed them for the sole purpose of giving Nell a pointed but still relatively relaxed look. He was not trying to hide what it was that he was doing here, no. His intentions would be made pretty clear.
Noticing the keys dangling from her hands, Joshua then brought his gray eyes back to her face and raised an eyebrow. "What were you planning to do?" His tone was not accusing or sly. He was genuinely curious, after all. He probably would have been disapproving if she had been going out when she was still really sick fuzzy but she was doing better now and he couldn't control her. He'd prefer that she stayed inside, sure, but he wasn't in charge. Standing up, for it was getting rather uncomfortable sitting in the hall, Joshua messed up the back of his dark hair to fix the flatness from where it had been pressed against the wall. Aside from the fact that his ass was going to go to sleep from sitting down so long, Josh just felt weird having to look up at Nell. He'd been shorter than a lot of the girls in his classes when he was younger, before he hit his growth spurt. He'd been made fun of for being so small and scrawny and once he'd gotten taller than a lot of people, especially the people that had previously looked down on him, he'd found he liked being tall. It gave him a sense of confidence. Looking up at your shorter-than-short girlfriend was a little disorienting when you were a foot and an inch taller than her standing up. "Mind if I tag along? Staring at your elevator loses its novelty after a while."
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Post by NELL DOE DALE on Nov 10, 2011 18:08:09 GMT -5
The girl blinked at Josh inquiringly. How long has he been out here? He was really something else, and that was the only way she could describe him—something else. Nell could tell when she was getting sarcasm, especially when Josh took off his sunglasses to give her a look that told her enough. That’s why he was sitting out here? She tilted her head and sighed resignedly. ”All right, I get it, you’re not going to school.” Nell wasn’t going to force her boyfriend to do anything he didn’t want to do, and that included going to school. It was his prerogative, no matter how much she wished he’d just put himself first and think about the work he was missing. Of course—since he did it when she was asleep—she wasn’t aware of the fact that Josh had been keeping up with his schoolwork. She was simply baffled by the fact he was so stubborn about this. ”And I’m not going to exile you from my apartment so you don’t have to keep sitting out here….doing whatever it is you were doing.” Nell turned her head to the side and gave him a quizzical look. She didn’t imagine it had been too exhilerating sitting out her. Nell caught a few words of the argument going on nearby, and hoped that they weren’t going to break anything in their apartment out of anger.
Josh inquired after what she was doing, and the girl shook the keys in her hand when she said, ”I was just gonna grab the mail. It’s probably been piling up.” Usually she’d just get it when she came back from grocery shopping or school, but since she’d been holed up in her apartment, she decided that now is as good a time as any to go and retrieve her mail. Josh may have been able to put off school, but she wasn’t able to put off the bills she had to pay. She didn’t even realize that he may be disapproving of the idea that she would go out in public when she said, "And then head back up to the apartment and watch some fine daytime programming." Nell was going to behave herself, after all, and stay in her apartment building. But she still thought that her mail was important enough that she should head down and pick it up. She wasn’t even aware that Josh may have been uncomfortable with having to look up at her, and that was the reason he stood, even though she could believe that sitting on your haunches for hours wasn’t the most pleasant thing. She didn’t think too much on her height, even though there was times—mostly when she was around Josh—that she realized she really got the short end of the stick. You are not funny, she told herself as a smile found its way to her face.
Nell looked over at the elevator and the lights informing what floor it was at. So that’s what he’d been doing? That was only so much better than watching paint dry. ”Sure,” she said amiably, accepting the fact that she wasn’t going to get rid of Josh. Going over to the elevator and pushing the down button, she humorously told him, ”Now you get to stare at the magnificent interior.” It was pretty amusing to know that was how he’d occupied himself while boycotting her insistence that he go to school and whatever else it was that he needed to do. The elevator wasn’t the most reliable transport—it was almost always getting repairs done, but as far as she knew, no one had died on it yet—but she didn’t think she was in good enough health to be trecking down eight flights of stairs. Down in the lobby, Nell opened her mailbox and as expected, there was a rather impressive pile of envelopes and store catalogues. She gingerly slid them out, and said, ”Bills and junkmail, this is my lucky day.” After removing the key, she closed the box and looked at Josh curiously. ”Are you sure you wanna hang around? I mean, you don’t even have to go to school. Go…ride a bike or something.” She really didn’t want him to feel like he had to be quarantined with her.
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Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Nov 10, 2011 18:37:04 GMT -5
There was a sense of satisfaction and triumph when Nell gave up and accepted his skipping as inevitable but he was not the type to rub something like that in her face. Especially not when his girlfriend could definitely change her mind about kicking him out if he started to be an ass about it. "Just listening to the neighbours," he said with a mild sense of amusement, glancing toward the offending apartment door as he spoke. He could still hear the yelling but it had gotten a tad fainter--maybe they'd moved rooms or something? He couldn't make out the expletives any more, not that he minded. Hearing other people argue might have been fun for some but it got rather boring to Joshua after only a short amount of time. What was the point? He and Nell had shared similar experiences with neighbours that had loud sex in the middle of the night but the angry argument cliché had not been on his floor. He'd been stuck with a pair of college dropouts that sold drugs and got high all the time, an elderly gentleman that liked to complain about the elevator not going up fast enough and blame random things on Josh because the Fire graduate looked the 'shifty' type, a woman he'd never actually met before (shut in, he assumed) and a few empty apartments. "Do you know them?" he asked. He knew that Nell was friendly but sometimes other people were not so kind and thus were hard to get to know. Or, like the woman who'd lived at the end of the hall in his ratty old building, didn't leave the house enough for you to get the chance.
He considered her comment about the mail as he walked with her toward the elevator, giving it a distrustful look as they waited for it to open. "You could have asked me to get it for you," he pointed out mildly. He'd been doing so much to help her out over the past few days that Joshua really wouldn't have minded at all. Of course, this was Nell. He didn't expect her to completely rely on him but if she'd been worried about bills he wouldn't have had any objections to getting the mail when coming back from a shopping trip or something. As long as I could take the stairs. He wasn't very fond of elevator travel, not since one he'd been in at the hospital had broken down and gotten him and the other three passengers stuck in it. It might not have been so bad if one of them hadn't been a psych patient with her nursing attendant. She'd spent the entire time sitting balled up in the corner and muttering about the apocalypse and how the elevator cord would snap and send them all plunging to their depths. Not very reassuring. Still, he knew that Nell would hardly be up for trekking down seven flights of stairs to get to the mailboxes and so he didn't complain. "Nice and shabby," he joked when she commented on the elevator interior. "Really has the whole 'dangerous' feel going on." He wasn't trying to freak her out, just pulling her leg. It hadn't killed anyone yet to his knowledge so he was less paranoid about it, more like he'd have preferred the alternative had it been there.
Joshua chuckled quietly at her comment on the mail but shook his head when she suggested that he leave to do something more interesting. I'd be at school if I didn't want to hang around, he thought wryly, though he did not say this aloud. He didn't want to make Nell feel like she was forcing him to miss his classes because she wasn't. This was his own stubborn choice and he was going to stick to it. That included being holed up in Nell's apartment with her. "I don't have a bike," he said. "It's at my parents house." There was the familiar sting as he disassociated himself with the mansion but he tried to push it away as quickly as possible. No use dragging his mood down when he was going to spend the day with his girlfriend. "Besides, I feel like hanging out with you." This was partially true. He really did enjoy her company, he just looked forward to when they could do something more productive than sitting around watching television. Josh really wasn't a TV kind of guy but you couldn't exactly 'hang out' when you were both reading or doing work. So he would put up with whatever it was she was forced to do during her 'down time' and then they could make up for it once she was feeling better. "How're you feeling today?" He avoided asking directly about sickness and ills because she'd requested that he do so and thus he just asked about her well-being in general, wondering if she were feeling any better.
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Post by NELL DOE DALE on Nov 10, 2011 21:17:30 GMT -5
Josh mentioned the neighbors she could hear the faint voices of, and looked over in the general direction. ”I hope no one calls the police on them this time,” she said sympathetically. Nell didn’t much like the police for clear reasons. They make her on edge, even when she wasn’t the one in trouble. But she had a feeling it was the same for everyone—policemen were intimidating. ”I’ve seen them around, but they never seem to be in the mood to talk.” She didn’t like saying unkind words about people, especially when she didn’t know them. They just seemed to be busy most of the time, and so she chose to left them alone. ”But I like to try and talk to everyone on the floor.” Even though this wasn’t the best apartment building to be living in, and definitely did not house the friendliest of people, it was kind of hard for Nell not to talk to people if she passed them in the hall. Even if it was an affable ‘hello’ when they crossed paths. ”I’d have to say the Lisowski’s are the most amiable up here. The neighbors.” She said the last part with a nod, to inform him which neighbors she meant. They didn’t look the nicest of people, and she knew that they were junkies, so she was a little intimidated by them at first. But they turned out to be decent and pretty reliable. Can’t judge a book by the cover.
Nell smiled at her boyfriend when he told her she could have asked him. ”It’s fine,” she said, shrugging. ”Don’t think I’ve gotten anything too important.” She wasn’t about to turn Josh into her servant or anything, either, even though he was doing a lot to help her out anyway. Nell would just feel like a bitch if she told him to go fetch her mail. She was still reluctant to make him do everything, after all, and since she was feeling better now, it only spurred her to do more things for herself. ”Didn’t want to bother you about it.” She shrugged it off, since mail wasn’t a too big concern, save for those pesky bills. The girl was unaware of Josh’s dislike of elevators. Probably because she’d never had a particularly traumatizing experience with one, even though when someone passes gas…that could count as pretty traumatizing. But otherwise, the only qualms she had with this elevator was that sometimes after a long day at school, she didn’t have too much energy to climb up the stairs when the elevator was broken. It was more like crawling up the stairs, actually. She cocked her head and observed the large metal doors. ”I agree,” Nell said. ”What would you rate this elevator?” Very low, actually. Especially since every time she set foot on it, there was that seventy percent chance that it would stop on the floor they were on.
Nell had really just been pulling something to do out of her ass, not knowing if Josh would actually enjoy going biking in the park or something. ”Buy a kite, maybe,” she said, a more joking tone leaking into her voice. ”Or roller skates.” Of course, she was serious about the fact that he could do whatever he want. It was unfortunate that they were both stubborn about their stances—him about sticking around, her about getting him outside. Another resigned sigh passed her lips when he said that he wanted to hang out with her, and she said, ”Well, I hope you like soaps.” They were quite entertaining she found, now that she was home to watch them. She wasn’t the kind of person to get involved in them, she just enjoyed watching the poor scripts in action. ”And infomercials.” Nell was the kind of person to see something advertised on television and believe everything they said about it, then pick up her phone to order. Infomercials were dangerous to her father’s bank account. As she busied herself with throwing out some junkmail in the recycling bin, she responded to his question with a cheery smile. ”I’m doing much better actually. Just a little headache and the sniffles, but that’s okay.” She liked to be optimistic about the fact that she was getting over her worse symptoms of…well, whatever she had. ”You?”
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Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Nov 10, 2011 22:37:23 GMT -5
Joshua considered what Nell had said seriously, arching an eyebrow. "This time?" he echoed. Though he had lived with the girl for several months now Joshua had not yet taken the time to get to know her neighbours. He'd exchanged an awkward smile with the neighbours that were always getting it on next door but apart from that had kept to himself. At least it wasn't like his own building. He had known most of them but it had been for the worst--the druggies had tried to mug him (thank god they'd been drunk and their aim had been off); the old man always threatened to call the cops, actually following through once when Joshua told him where he could stick his opinions; and the couple next door always ignored him when he threw something at the wall to try and get them to shut up. Josh was not a prude--far from it--he just didn't appreciate really loud sex when he was trying to study. He'd give them a break every now and then and just surf the internet until they gave up and went to bed but as it went on almost nightly (and sometimes during the day) it had been rather annoying. Thank god he was out of there. "They're really nice to each other, too," he winked at Nell's specifications. He didn't really care about their nightly adventures because he'd been dulled against it by his old neighbours. It was practically a normal part of the day for him, now. It was also frustrating to know that he couldn't have that sort of relationship with someone but it wasn't like he was going to confide in Nell about that. Nah, that would make things far too awkward.
Regarding the elevator with obvious disdain, he said, "I wouldn't." He wasn't being a poor sport and not playing along; rather, Josh was implying that it was such a shitty piece of machinery that it didn't even have enough worth for a rating. Thus, a zero. He hoped that Nell knew him well enough to understand that by now. He was generally a lot more patient and willing to go along with things when he was around her as opposed to when he was with someone else. The effect she had on him was remarkable. Down in the lobby, Josh gave a bit of a start as he remembered having left his phone in his car. "Damn, I need to go out and get something. Hang on." He'd taken it with him when he was going out to the store and then just forgotten to put it back in his pocket when he'd left. Out at the car he was retrieving the phone when he caught sight of a weathered dark blue book mostly shoved under the passenger side dashboard. "Hm?" Pulling it out, he opened it and found it to be an old photo album. Wonder what this is doing in here? Shrugging it off, he took it with him as well as the phone when he went back to Nell. "Sorry about that," he said cheerfully. "Back to the rickety Box of Doom." He punched in the seventh floor button when they'd gotten in, hoping that it didn't stop for a bunch of people while they were going up. "Glad to hear it," he said honestly when Nell told him she was doing better. "I'm fine, no worries." Fine, fine, always fine.
At about the fifth floor when he was feeling optimistic about the fact that it wasn't stopping for any reason it shuddered to a halt. "Oh for fuck's--" He was about to complain about whomever was going to get in when the lights in the elevator went off, too. "Shit." He'd thought that someone was just getting in but it seemed they were in worse trouble than that. He was not a person who easily panicked and thus even though being stuck in an elevator was not the way he'd wanted to spend the morning he merely frowned and wondered what it was they should do. Who fixed these sorts of things? He'd always taken the stairs in his apartment so he wasn't really sure. "Here, I'll give us some light." Like lighting a match, Josh waved his hand and a medium-sized ball of fire hovered in the air between them. The light was not as impressive as the electric ones had been but it at least allowed good visibility. He pressed the emergency alarm button and sat down against the wall, sighing. "This is because I insulted you, isn't it?" Josh addressed the elevator with a completely serious face. If you hadn't known him you might have believed it. Glancing up at Nell--I hate when she's taller than me...--Josh gestured to the area of the small box beside him. "Might as well get comfortable," he said, playing around with the book in his hands.
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Post by NELL DOE DALE on Nov 11, 2011 0:23:03 GMT -5
Nell nodded as if it was completely normal to have the police at your apartment building. And it really was normal when one lived in a place like this. She figured Josh could relate, having lived in a rather bad area himself before. ”A little while back, I think there was some property damage involved.” Of course, there was always talk whenever an abulence pulled up and people liked to event stories to make it more dramatic. If Josh had asked someone else about the police being called, they might say that so-and-so got shanked and what’shisface had to be restrained. That’s what she usually got if she asked someone about the appearance of police at the building. Everyone liked to exaggerate stories to epic proportions, because loud arguments weren’t that exciting to talk about. She snorted when Josh remarked about how well her neighbors got along with each other, feeling like a ten-year-old looking at a science book. Nell had since grown used to it, but when you were a virgin who didn’t know the first thing about sex, the first time hearing it was rather startling. She had been very close to knocking on their door and making sure everything was all right. Now she just pulled her covers over her head and was simply thankful for the fact they weren’t fighting like the other neighbors.
By his comment, she figured that Josh wasn’t too fond of the elevator and so she laughed and let it drop. She was used to the elevator and didn’t mind it too much—it was much more convenient than the stares. Nell blinked at Josh as he seemed to remember something—his phone that he left in the car, apparently—and she began going through bills as she waited for him to get back. She liked the fact that she was pretty stable when it came to her income so that she didn’t have to worry too much about her bills. She would never pay for things like that with her father’s money, after all, especially now that she was feeling less bitter toward him ever since Josh told her that he was the one who helped him out. Josh came back and her eyes were caught by something in his hand, that was not a phone. ”Whatcha got there?” she asked, even though she recognized it now as a photo album. Did he get that from his car? He keeps a photo album in his car? It seemed a little strange to her, but then again, she had burned her pictures. She couldn’t really judge what Josh did with his own. When Josh stated he was fine, she took it in stride and didn’t question whether or not he really was fine.
Nell wasn’t bothered when the elevator stopped in its path, until the lights flickered off. ”Well that can’t be good,” she deadpanned uneccesarily after Josh’s expletive. She felt a sick feeling in her stomach—and not the sickness she had been experiencing for the last week either—when she realized that she was basically trapped inside a very small, tiny, miniscule compartment until further notice. She had half a mind to try and wrench the doors open with sheer force of will. That wouldn’t work, however, and so she swallowed hard and jumped a little when she saw the fire, even though her boyfriend had told her what he’d been about to do. Get a hold of yourself. She tried to convince herself that they wouldn’t be stuck in her for long, that someone would come and fix the elevator in about three seconds. Nell would have chuckled when Josh sat down and remarked about the fact that it was some sort of payback for his earlier insults that had broken the elevator, but that was when those three seconds had passed and it didn’t seem funny anymore. Instead, she went to the panel and mumbled, ”Maybe you didn’t push hard enough,” before pressing the emergency button a few more times for good measure, her hand shaking. She jumped again and turned when Josh spoke and sat down next to him in defeat dropping the mail on the floor and wrapping her arms around her legs. She stared at the doors as if she could make them open with the heat of her glare and then realized how close the walls were, and decided it would be a better idea to close her eyes and bury her head in her arms. She did not need this when she was sick.
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Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Nov 11, 2011 0:59:35 GMT -5
Joshua had forgotten the fact that Nell didn't know what he was holding and so he glanced down at the album when she pointed it out. "Oh, just some old pictures," he said. "Rescued them from my dormitory when I went to grab the laptop." His tone was not evasive and he was not trying to hide anything from her, though Joshua did not offer any more input. These were not just any pictures, they were the ones from his childhood upward. There were a few recent pictures and there were also pictures of Joshua without the scar on his face. He was not someone who often allowed time for getting sentimental but he thought that he might like to look through them later. When he'd flipped it open to figure out what it was he had seen a couple of the ones from before Annabel was born. He had been so small back then. Who'd have thought that the runty little bookworm would turn into... well, Joshua? "I'd forgotten they were there, actually." That wasn't all too surprising. He'd had the album in his dormitory since the start of college. They had been at the bottom of a book box that he'd brought with him and though he'd made frequent plans to bring them back to the mansion he'd just always ended up forgetting. He hoped that Nell didn't mind him leaving them around her apartment but he didn't see why she would. It wasn't like there was anything particularly inappropriate in there. A few pictures in the summer where he was void of a shirt but at least he had pants on. Not that he'd mind if Nell saw him without any pants but apparently that freaked her out.
He worried about her reaction as she got up and started pressing the button a few times. "I pressed it, Nell," he said patiently. Joshua vaguely recalled a few moments in the past when claustrophobia had been an issue and that caused a twist in his stomach. He really hoped that this didn't drive Nell into some sort of panic attack. He'd try to sit with her and comfort her the best he could if she started shaking or crying or something like that but Josh did not do good in that kind of situation, usually. As this was Nell he'd probably fare a little better. He'd sat with her as she'd cried about her mother even though he'd allowed her to think his assumptions were off. They hadn't been assumptions, after all, but facts from her own lips. Would you stop thinking about the trial? This is a really bad time. Instead, he noticed that Nell was huddled up with her face buried in her arms and shifted closer to her so that they were right next to one another. He hoped that simply being there for her could provide some sort of comfort and stability but seriously doubted that. He remembered how all he'd been able to think about during the panic attack about guns was how far away he needed to be from the offending object. No running out of the elevator, he thought in resignation, hesitating before putting an arm around her. "You okay?" he asked in concern. "Doesn't take them very long to fix these things, don't worry." At least he could claim that he had actual experience if she asked, even if it was the elevator in a hospital.
With one arm still around his girlfriend's shoulders, Joshua rested the book against his knees and opened it with the other, flipping a couple of pages to get past the pictures of his parents at their wedding. He paused for a moment at the 'before' picture of the mansion and his lips twitched into a smile. "They really had to fix up that house, huh?" He hoped that talking about other things could keep Nell's mind off the fact that they were stuck in such a tiny space that they couldn't get out of. He was optimistic about people coming to help them but apparently she was not and so he hoped to distract her for long enough that it didn't seem so bad. It hurt to flip the page and see a smiling picture of himself and his father, actually smiling, looking like the family they were meant to be. It was before Joshua had developed his deathly fear of the water--he could only have been six years old. They were out by the lake in the backyard, the old and rotting dock in the background. They'd fixed that up over the next summer, he remembered. The yacht was not yet to be seen sitting atop the clear-as-glass water. He pondered the picture wordlessly, seemingly deep in thought. Damn, I was smaller than I remembered. It was strange to think about it. His face was also smooth and unscarred, his demeanour bright and happy. I wonder what I was thinking when she took the picture? "Annabel wasn't even born then," he offered to his girlfriend. "That was taken so long ago."
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Post by NELL DOE DALE on Nov 11, 2011 2:10:17 GMT -5
”Oh,” Nell said when he clarified what he’d gotten, apparently having grabbed it from his dorm and forgotten about it. It was cute to think that he had a photo album, for some reason. The only photos she had were of her sister and her friends, which she kept in her wallet, so she’d never even had one before. ”What are the pictures of?” she inquired. Since she never had a photo album before, she figured he may also have pictures of friends and family. Okay, she only kept pictures of one relative, but Tilly was the only one that had mattered. Josh had more family that he cared about, so she figured that he would have more pictures of them as well. I’m glad I burned them all, she thought. Some of them she really didn’t have a right to get rid of, but her father had given them to her, so she figured that since she owned them she could do whatever she wanted with them. But she had a feeling her father kept some pictures of Mia, and it was odd to think of that. She didn’t want any pictures of the woman or any memories that really should not be immortalized.
Nell reluctantly accepted the fact that people weren’t going to come quicker the more times she pushed the button by the time she sat down, and so stewed in her panic. I can’t get out, there’s no way out…” She felt Josh move closer and almost jumped again, thicking this just might be the walls pressing in on her. Nell didn’t want to look up and see just how small it was, so she kept her eyes squeeze shut even though her arms provided a good defense by creating darkness. Speaking of arms, even when she felt his around her shoulder she didn’t look up, because that would mean staring at the four walls of the technically locked elevator. At his question, though, she looked up and shook out her rumpled hair so that she could give a more convincing answer. It wouldn’t do to say ‘I’m just peachy keen’ when she was speaking into her arms. Keeping her eyes firmly trained on his face so that she didn’t have to noticed the walls, she told him, ”I’m all right. Just…” Just a littke bit freaked out because it’s so small and is the oxygen running out? Her eyes widened slightly when she considered that, wondering if that could happen. She didn’t dare look over to the firmly shut door to see if there was a way for oxygen to leak past, because that would just make her feel worse. ”Y-yeah, I hope so.” She’d never gotten stuck in the elevator before, and now she was very glad about it. ”But …how do they…know to come? Like…how does the emergency button work?” She had been pressing it like her life depended on it, but didn’t know how that connected with anything. Right now, her mind was just going to the possibility that no one was going to come and that they would be stuck there forever. With this thought, she took a shuddering breath and pressed her face into her arms again.
Josh’s voice made her look up once more, since she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about until she blinked and looked down at the open photo album. Just look at that, imagine you’re sitting outside. It was very hard to imagine when the air was very much stifling. She bit on her thumb for a moment as she gathered her thoughts enough to ask, ”Is that the mansion?” It was hard to recognize, but she’d seen it enough that she could pull out the familiarity and she just assumed by Josh’s words that it was his home. Had been his home, before he got kicked out. Those weren’t very good thoughts, and she definitely didn’t need them on-top of her present anxiety and illness. She didn’t feel very nauseous or anything, but the uncomfortable feeling was gnawing at her chest as if she wasn’t getting enough air. All she needed to do was focus on the pictures, though, and not on the fact that they were currently trapped in…Don’t think, don’t think about it. Instead of thinking, she looked at the picture of Josh and his father, a smile lightig up her face. ”You were so adorable,” she said lightly, forcing her mind to focus only on the pictures and nothing else. She breathed a little easier when she said, ”How old were you?” She had to admit, it was strange seeing pictures of little Josh. True, there were pictures around his house, but it was still funny to see a miniature version of him. Especially without the scars. She’d grown so used to the one on his face, it was strange remembering him before he got jumped.
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Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Nov 11, 2011 2:36:09 GMT -5
He had to think about it for a moment as he had only flipped through a few pages but as they'd all involved him he was pretty sure he was holding the right one. "Me, mostly," he said. "Mum gave them to me a few years back." She'd been clearing out the really nice front part of the attic with it's huge windows in order to turn it into something else but something at work had come up to pull her away from the task and she'd never gotten around to it. There were also the wedding pictures, the baby pictures, pictures from the family parties. It was basically sections of his life in a nutshell. He had flipped through it in slight amusement when she'd given it to him, looking for familiar faces of their friends that they'd lost touch with over the years and wondering what those people might be doing now. He'd mostly tried to avoid focusing on his own pictures because at the time he'd recieved them some of the gang stuff had still been fresh in his mind. It had happened a few years previous to Trish handing him the book of memories but that mattered not. He was never going to forget his past and what they'd done to him. It was because of them that he'd gotten so close to Nell. "I think there are some of Annabel in it as well but only when I'm in them." Which, being the overprotective older brother that he was, Joshua was in a lot of the pictures involving his baby sister. She'd been a cute little kid. Delicate, almost. He vaguely remembered mingled feelings of fascination and jealousy in the beginning--the latter faded away quite quickly once he accepted that his parents had not been trying to find a replacement.
His girlfriend was jumpy and paranoid. Joshua wanted to be able to dissipate these feelings and reactions as much as possible but his helplessness was really starting to gnaw at him. What had he done to calm down when they'd ran out of that party? Oh, right, he thought sarcastically. It just might have been the fact that we had police on our tail. He still felt somewhat guilty about that but as it had all worked out alright in the end he wasn't going to bring it up again. He tended to bury the hatchet in situations like this. He had apologised at the time and the last thing Nell needed when her claustrophobia was acting up was a reminder of what an idiot her boyfriend could be sometimes. "I imagine there's an alert somewhere for when someone presses the button," he told her. "When it happened to me they showed up really fast." It had been about two or three minutes of listening to the crazed woman muttering in the corner. Of course, to someone who thought the walls were closing in on them that probably seemed like an eternity. 'Really fast' was probably a better term to use for it. "And if they didn't hear it the first time you certainly gave them a good reminder," he said, trying to lighten up their unfortunate situation with humour. He didn't really know what else to do even though she probably wouldn't be able to see the amusement in it when she was so freaked out. Damn. Hurry the hell up. He wouldn't have cared so much if it was just him in here but he was with Nell. That changed everything.
A simple nod confirmed the question. It sure looked different without its landscaping and redone exterior. There were empty places where rooms now were, as well, from when Donovan and Patricia had taken advantage of their funds and built some additions onto the house. He gestured to an area of the house on the third floor and managed a small chuckle. "That's where my room is, now." Though the house was almost unrecognisable behind all the choking weeds and damages (his parents had bought a real fixer-upper) as someone who had lived there, grown up there, there were definitely parts he could distinguish. His parents looked so young in the picture--his father couldn't be more than a few years older than he was now. He really looks like me. His mother had still been very pretty when she was younger but in the photograph the lines were completely gone from her face. He ducked his head a little when Nell called him adorable, grinning sheepishly. Normally he would have rather died than show anyone pictures of his 'small' phase but he trusted Nell enough not to spread it around or make a habit of reminding him. "About six, I think. We fixed up the docks when I was seven and when I was eight I--" He coughed a little and broke off. "Er, that's when I stopped going around the lake," he finished, hoping she could infer the rest. He flipped through another couple of pages and found one when he was around twelve. His little sister was only the mere age of five, playing with something on the floor. Patrick was in this picture and thus the mood of it seemed more tense. Maybe it was just because he knew what he did now. He quickly flipped to another one of just him and his sister alone. "I'll let you look through on your own time when we get back to the apartment if you want," he offered, solely because he trusted her. He also said 'when' rather than 'if' because, well... if was a bad word.
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Post by NELL DOE DALE on Nov 11, 2011 16:42:04 GMT -5
Josh explained what was going on, and she didn’t know whether it reassured her or not. An alert? Okay, but how soon would they actually come? What if their air runs out before then? It wasn’t even the oxygen that was her biggest concern—the panic she felt was completely irrational because nothing bad would happen if they had to sit in an elevator for a little bit. But it didn’t feel that way to her. ”It happened to you?” she asked in a meek voice. She was busy trying to make herself feel smaller so that the space wouldn’t be so tight around her. It wasn’t working very well, and she thought that maybe she needed a better imagination or something. The oxygen is running out, isn’t it, I’m going to suffocate soon. How long did it take for oxygen to run out, she wondered? The logical part of her brain wouldn’t even consider that question. The panic was overwhelming every part of her brain so that there was no possible way she could figure anything out at this point. And she definitely did not find much humorous at this point. Nell didn’t even smile when he joked, just spoke a quiet, ”Oh.” She hoped that her reminders would make them come quicker, and she was currently wondering what was keeping them up. Is there another elevator emergency somewhere? she wondered.
The pictures were doing a pretty decent job at distracting her, at least, even though she couldn’t help some instances of letting her eyes flit to a part of the elevator and her throat constricting as she quickly returned her gaze to the album. Biting her nails in a habit that was only common during moments of anxiety like this, she could only nod when Josh pointed out his room in the dilapidated buidling. She felt like an outsider looking in, and she really was because these weren’t her memories. If she was not trying to currently put a leash on her panic, she’d have more to ask and to offer Josh, but she was still keenly aware of the constricted area. Anxiety didn’t just disappear because there were pictures to look at. Still, she paid shrewd attention to what Josh was saying when he told her how old he’d been in the picture, trying to trick her mind away from thinking of the elevator by summoning up thoughts like how she’d have liked to given his younger self some candy. Apparently, her love of children was not limited to those who were children at this point in time. She gave Josh a curious look, wondering if it was around eight-years-old that he’d developed his phobia of drowning. She didn’t know what had triggered his phobia, and didn’t ask. Nell watched as he turned to another picture, one with him and the oh so adorable Annabel and a man that looked like Patrick. ”He hasn’t really changed,” she noted in her small voice. She figured that once you hit a certain age, your appearance stopped changing. Probably somewhere in your fifties or sixties, when father time decided that your age in pictures will be ‘old’. ”All right,” Nell said timidly when her boyfriend gave her permission to look through the album.
It took several more minutes of looking at pictures before she heard noises outside of the door, and braced herself before turning her gaze toward the doors. In that moment, they slowly opened as if being forced, and she saw a repairman outside. Nell didn’t need anymore initiative, because a second later she half-ran out of the small compartment and went on her merry way to the door for the staircase, not even caring that the elevator may have already been fixed and they could have taken it the rest of the way up. Her breaths came easier now, deeper as she tried to take in the air of the more open space of the floor. ”We’re taking the stairs,” she said firmly, even though she still felt crappy and the elevator would be more convenient. She just wanted to get back to her apartment now and possibly weep like a small child because she’d been wholly traumatized by elevators now. Nell couldn’t be positive that she’d ever use an elevator again.
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Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Nov 11, 2011 17:17:17 GMT -5
He nodded when his girlfriend asked him the question, his thoughts going back to that time. It had been more frightening than this because he hadn't been allowed to use his powers in the presence of mortals and there had been a patient from the psych ward sharing an elevator with him, but he didn't go into detail. That would sound like he was belittling Nell's fears and that was one of the last things he wanted to do. "In the hospital," he said instead. "And they've got tons of elevators. They'll come help us out in no time." He had already said something along those lines but he was trying for constant reassurance seeing as he didn't know what else to do. Damn it, he wished that phobias weren't so complicated. If he had been able to placate her and calm her fear he would have but the Fire graduate knew himself how difficult that was. His gray eyes stared at the stationary figure of Patrick in the photograph, frozen forever as his only slightly younger self. Nell was right, there wasn't much of a different. Annabel and Joshua were much younger and looked slightly different to their current selves but Patrick could have just stepped right out of the picture and into being. He flipped the page to another shot, this time with both his mother and father included. It was another one in the dining room but this time the lavish decorations around the place and the piled plates of food on the table suggested it was Christmas. "I still miss them sometimes," he mused, his gray gaze distant. He didn't mean to cause Nell any grief or guilt, he was merely speaking his mind. He did wish that things hadn't happened the way they did, but he also acknowledged there was no changing it.
Joshua was not quite as quick to react as Nell, getting to his feet more slowly and shooting an apologetic glance at the repairman when the man gave him a confused look. Nell had practically shot out of the elevator and he was probably wondering why but Josh wasn't going to tell him. Maybe he thinks we jammed it on purpose? He'd heard about teenagers taking advantage of a stuck elevator to make out or do other things but that had been the last thing on their minds. Despite his slower pace, his longer strides made it quite easy to catch up to Nell. He rested a hand on her shoulder as she practically demanded that they take the staircase. "Alright," he said, voicing no argument. He didn't like the elevator to begin with but he'd likely have went with Nell even if he had. It would have been a real dick move to insist that they continue up in the elevator when they'd just been trapped in it and triggered her claustrophobia. "Are you going to be alright?" he asked her as he climbed the stairs, his gray eyes searching her face. He kept his hand trained on the railing just in case; as he was looking at Nell and not ahead to where he was going, he didn't want to trip or fall backward. Last thing he needed was a broken neck on top of everything else. At any rate, he was glad that they had gotten out of the tiny little box when they had. Though he was not claustrophobic, every second had felt like a minute to him because of whom he'd had sitting beside him. He'd felt pretty helpless. Well, it's over now.
When they got back to her apartment, Joshua yawned slightly and shrugged off his sweater, depositing his keys into the pocket of his jeans instead. I guess I didn't get enough sleep last night, he mused. He was used to that thanks to his usually hectic schedule and so merely brushed off the fatigue. Although he could use something to wake him up. Almost certain that there was still a bit of tea left from when he'd gotten it at the start of the ordeal, he said, "I think I'm going to make myself something to drink. Want anything when I'm in the kitchen?" He was generalizing 'anything'--he didn't care whether it was food or drink or anything like that. Nell might have felt guilty for asking him to do things for her but he liked the busy feeling that it gave him. Joshua got antsy if he had to sit down for hours on end without a book to read or something to keep him occupied. After returning from the kitchen, he took a long sip of the steaming hot tea before even waiting for it to cool down. It quite literally burned down his throat but as a Fire elemental he found that he quite liked the sensation of the warmth after the initial pain. "About those soaps you mentioned earlier," he said, still a tad wary of them considering he didn't watch television very often, "which ones were you referring to?"
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Post by NELL DOE DALE on Nov 11, 2011 20:47:14 GMT -5
At Josh’s assurances, Nell took her hand away and paused in her nail-biting to say, ”Okay.” It didn’t matter how soon they’d come, really, because for now she would be stuck and that was the worst thing. In this moment, she was just stuck. Powerless against how small it is. She resisted closing her eyes again, keeping them on the pictures of Josh’s childhood. Sometimes she felt the yearning for a childhood that she could have framed, parents whose pictures she wouldn’t want to burn, but since there was no changing her history, she tried not to think of it. She never had a Christmas like the one in the picture, even when things were at least relatively stable. Not like her parents had enough money. But she could at least live vicariously through Josh’s pictures, trying out her imagination once again so that she didn’t focus on the walls. What was Christmas like, anyway? When you were happy, at least. There was an ache in her chest when he spoke the words, announcing his homesickness. It reminded her that there would be no more pictures, no more memories with his sister and his father and his mother. Patrick didn’t matter, of course, but his family…he didn’t have that anymore. Of course he missed them, and in that moment Nell understood the helplessness that Josh felt about her claustrophobia—there was nothing she could do to fix it. Not unless she pushed him out of her life, and as it turned out, she could be selfish. She didn’t want him to push him away. Which is probably why she leaned into him as a sign of comfort.
Nell’s eagerness to get the hell out of the elevator, she still managed to get her mail and tucked it under her arm. However, Josh’s hand on her arm managed to slow her down a bit, so that she didn’t trip her way up the stairs. She was probably only exasperating her sickness, but after a mini-episode, it’s not like she really cared too much. The headache did well to remind her, however, and so she decided that she should calm herself a little more before she had another episode for a different reason. Nell gave her boyfriend a tired smile when she nodded. ”I’m going to be great,” she reassured. Now that she was in a relatively larger space, the panic was fading, even though she was still kind of jittery. To show how great she was going to be, she joked, ”You know, as long as I don’t get stuck in any more elevators.” Her tone was still a little tiny, like she was holding back something, but she was feeling better. ”Are you going to be all right?” Nell asked, her smile still on her face as she took the steps two at a time. She really wanted to be back in the safety of her apartment, so she could go and cuddle with Pablo. ‘
In the apartment, she put her mail on the coffee table and opened up a few more bills so she could sort out in her head what she should pay for first. However, her headache was not allowing that, and she sat back on her couch, patting the cushion when she saw Pablo coming near. She hesitated a moment when Josh asked if she wanted anything—I’m never going to get over this—before saying, ”Uhm, if the Advil’s in there…” Nell trailed off so that he could infer what she meant. Advil would definitely be super helpful, but she didn’t want to sound at all needy. She hated being a burden, even though Josh repeatedly told her that she wasn’t being a burden and he wanted to take care of her. It was still something that was like instinct to her. When he came back out with the tea, she was already flicking through the channels to see what was on, her bills now abandoned. ”Well…if General Hospital is on, Raspy voice is going to be there, speaking with his raspy voice.” She didn’t know many of the names, yet, so she’d taken to nicknaming a lot of them. As she was flicking through, though, she stopped when she saw an infomercial advertising a slider station, and that caught her attention. She took out her phone, at the ready to dial up the number on the screen. "I suddenly want sliders now..." she muttered, her eyes transfixed on the screen.
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Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Nov 12, 2011 0:39:32 GMT -5
Though he felt Nell lean on him and was glad that he could at least provide some sort of small comfort Joshua had no idea of what was actually going on in her head. If she'd confided in him once again about the guilt she felt over this whole ordeal he likely would have rolled his eyes and dismissed the concerns. She had killed her mother to save her own life. She couldn't possibly have known that months in the future she was going to come to the Academy and meet some asshole that would later on become her boyfriend who would then be disowned by his family for the crime. He understood that. He was rational even if he did have anger problems. He was as relieved as she when they finally got out of the elevator, though it was more for her sake than his own. "Maybe these stairs would be good for you," he mused, then asked, "Have you ever thought about asking your landlord to transfer your apartment to an open one on the lower floor?" He wasn't sure it was always possible but he knew that one of the units on his floor had been occupied by a man in a wheelchair for a couple weeks until another had become vacant on the bottom floor. It was more convenient for the guy to just go into the lobby and go into his house rather than having to take the trip up the elevator every day. Nell's situation was a bit different but hey, maybe it was still possible. He was a mansion baby, he didn't know most apartment etiquette.
He smiled and almost laughed when Nell turned the question around on him. "Why wouldn't I be?" It was better than 'I'm fine' at least. He really did feel okay, if a little nostalgic and homesick. He'd grown used to the longing for his family and he did his best to ignore it for the sake of the girlfriend he was now walking up the stairs with. He was living with her now and he had grown to accept that. A lot of people probably thought that they were living together for... well, other reasons but he didn't care what they thought. If they wanted to assume he'd moved in with his girlfriend (well, alright, only a tiny amount of people would know) because they wanted to sleep together more often then they could go right ahead. He wasn't out to prove or disprove their idiotic rumours. As far as he knew Nell didn't share details about their relationship with other people and he respected that as well as returned the favour. Privacy suited them in a relationship because it was just who they were. "You should worry about yourself, Nell," he told her a little more seriously, though the smile was still fixed onto his features. "I'm alright." He wasn't claustrophobic, assuming this was about the elevator thing anyway. If it had been about his family then 'alright' was a little less accurate but he was still handling it pretty well (if he did say so himself). He'd also managed to stop pissing Donovan off with great difficulty... and, well, maybe a little guilt. The man was the father he'd respected and looked up to for years. Some things stuck.
"Advil, no problem." He nodded and grabbed it on his way out of the kitchen, tossing them to her lightly as he sat down beside her. He had been continuously trying to prove over the course of the half-week that he didn't mind helping her out nearly as much as she hated accepting it. He would do a lot of things for her, he cared about her. He cared about his friends and she was more than a friend to him--would always be more than a friend, no matter what happened between them. Even if they broke up or went their separate ways he couldn't view her as someone insignificant. She'd saved his life, after all, she'd earned his trust. That was a special thing to him. "'Raspy voice'?" Joshua repeated, giving an amused snort. "Do you nickname them all?" He felt it was safe to assume that it wasn't the guy's real name because most dramas and soaps did not have people called 'Raspy Voice' or anything like that. He had grown to accept the fact that a lot of things Nell did surprised him and so he accepted this without further questioning past wondering if she had names for them all. His mind was not on the television much at all and especially not on the informational, though Nell called his attention to it. Frowning, he said skeptically, "Do you really need them, though? These things are usually expensive for what they're worth and a lot of them don't work right." That was what he'd heard, anyway. Not that he relied a lot on informationals to get the things he bought.
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Post by NELL DOE DALE on Nov 12, 2011 1:54:49 GMT -5
Nell looked up as she thought about what Josh said. ”I never had any problems before, really,” she told him, redirecting her gaze at him. She’d never been too sick when she didn’t feel like walking up all the staircases, even though it was inconvenient to say the least. And she’d most certainly never been trapped in one. ”Though now I might have to. If there’s any open ones.” She wouldn’t want to bug the superintendent, but the incident may have traumatized her enough that she had second thoughts about setting foot on a crummy elevator again. When there was the strong possibility of being enclosed in such a small space for long periods of time, Nell would much rather avoid it. ”But if it’s too much trouble, I think I can handle it.” She’d just have to risk it, really. If she did travel by elevator. Nell was thinking now that she’d only dare it if there were just two floors she had to travel between. Any more increased the risk. But Josh did bring up a good point, one that she was now considering. With a smile, she sincerely said, ”I’d miss the Lisowskis.” Despite the fact that she was more involved in their sex lives than she’d like, they were very nice and she always liked helping them out if they needed it. She liked the people on her floor, actually, in spite of the fact that a lot of them were scumbags. It wasn’t like she was the best judge of character.
Shrugging, Nell felt almost shy when Josh asked why he wouldn’t be okay. ”I just like to know,” she said honestly. She liked to make sure that everyone around her was doing all right, even if she didn’t outright question them. It would be rather random to come out of nowhere and ask after the well-being of a companion. But since Josh had brought it up, she felt as if it was a good a time as any. He told her that she should be looking after herself instead, though, and she squeaked out, ”I-I do!” She had just confirmed that she was okay, hadn’t she? Not that she tried to think too hard on it, but she did think about herelf. But honestly, they had both been stuck in the elevator, and that couldn’t have been much fun for him, either. When he actually responded, she smiled and said, ”Well good. I like to hear that.” She always liked to hear that Josh was doing all right, even when sometimes she couldn’t tell whether or not he just gave that gut reaction of ‘I’m fine’. But he was uninjured, so she took his word for it. Never did it cross her mind that maybe she was worrying a little too much about Josh.
She caught the Advil and uncapped it, dry swallowing the two before pulling Pablo onto her lap. He didn’t seem too bothered by it and simply got busy washing himself. As the Advil worked its magic on her headache and she looked at the bills again, attention caught between televisino and paper, Josh questioned her naming of the character on General Hospital. ”If I don’t know their name, yeah,” she told him, smiling brightly. ”There’s Suave, this lady with really voluminous hair. She uses a lot of mousse, I bet. And Serious Guy, who I think has something against smiling.” Until she learned their names, they had a special place in her mind as ‘the nicknamed ones’. Of course, she didn’t do this with people in real life, since she took extra care to remember the names of people she met. It was almost criminal to her if she let a name slip her mind, even if it was a stranger she’d just met. Bills forgotten when the informercial came on, she tilted her head to the side when Josh denounced the wonders of the Slider Station. ”B-but…the perfect slider!” she said, pointing to the screen with wide eyes. Now excited, she shifted and held Pablo on her lap as she tucked her legs underneath her. ”Imagine this. I am really hungry and have all this hamburger meat, and no idea what to do with it. Why, I can just pull out that handy contraption and bam! Dinner and possibly leftovers.” As her closing statement, she told Josh, ”Methinks it’s a pretty good deal.” Of course, Nell was easily impressed and this didn’t hold much water.
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