Jen & John | Early Wednesday Morning

[x-pyromania.livejournal.com]

"Smokers, male and female, inject and excuse idleness in their lives every time they light a cigarette." - Sidonie Gabrielle Colette-

It had been raining last night and all of this morning. John wished he could've stayed in bed instead of having to go to work. He slipped his jacket on and walked out of his room, thinking that he'd have a quick smoke outside at the back porch before heading out.

The banging of the screen door didn't even startle the other occupant of the porch. Jennie figured she quit once she was done with her last final. It was the downhill slope, and once this last paper (which she should have been inside typing but she desperately needed to be someplace that didn't contain walls or a computer) was done, she would have officially survived her freshman year of college. Jennie turned around and raised a dark eyebrow in greeting.

"Fuck." Not exactly a greeting one might expect in return but John had only just realized he'd forgotten his pack of smokes. He made to turn and head back inside but paused and glanced over at Jennie. "Huh." He had no idea she was a smoker. Then again, he didn't know shit about her. "Hey. Think you can spare me one?"

Jennie exhaled slowly, almost tauntingly. "What's in it for me?" she said primly. Normally generous when it came to handouts, since there was a time when she supported her nicotine habit purely off the generousity of others, but this was John. John was fun to fuck with.

"Fifteen minutes of conversation where you can either express your hate for whatever it is that's got you smoking like a chimney or," John sat on the bench and rested his forearm on the wooden table. "Fuck if I know. Just hand me one before I burn that stick you've got in your hand."

"You know, it would serve you right if these were menthols," Jennie said, holding the box to her chest before flipping open the top and passing it over. "However, I'd rather remove my tongue with my eyelash curler than lower myself as such. You lucky bastard. Take as needed," she added, taking a drag off her own.

John smirked and slipped two sticks out of the pack. "These things will kill you." He snapped the lid of his lighter open and extracted the flame out to light his cigarette.

"Yes, but unlike most of the things in my life that have tried to kill me, these will kill me slowly," Jennie said cheerfully. "I call that a win," she contemplated the cigarette in her hands before taking another long drag. "In answer to your first question, it's finals season."

"Huh. I kind of just finished that crap up last week." All he had to do now was wait for his results and then send in an application to New York University for the Masters program. Nathan had already agreed to cough up the cash for it. That was good news at least. "What's your other half been up to? I haven't seen him around in months."

"The usual. College and co-eds. Some times I don't see him outside of practice runs," Jennie shrugged and ran a hand through her bangs, making a face. "I make up for it by calling him at random times and reading passages out of my romance novels. I try to make sure it's only at a convenient time. Like when he's with a girl." She turned to her companion on the porch. "And you? How is it working for Nate and saving the world one Stanstanistan at a time?"

John snorted out a chuckle. "Hold on, hold on. What do you mean by, when he's with a girl? You two have some kind of an open relationship thing going on?"

Jennie burst into giggles. "Oh dear, honey, did no one tell you? The marriage thing was a joke we played on people. We're not together, never been." She took another drag. "I don't even see him enough anymore to justify playing it anymore." And she couldn't deny that it bothered her, just a little.

He frowned. All these while he'd thought that the two of them had by some goddamn malfunction gotten hitched for the heck of it. "I don't get it. What kind of a weird ass prank is that to play on people? It's not even funny."

"Better than telling people the truth," said Jennie, flicking her bangs out of her eyes. "What happened that summer was not one of the more fun times of my life. Telling people we eloped and playing it up kept people from asking questions about things we didn't to talk about. Then we just didn't care enough to correct it later on," she shrugged. "But no, Marius and I are not married, nor have we ever dated. I mean, seriously, him? Please. He's ridiculous."

John raised an eyebrow at hearing that. "Huh." Somehow he didn't quite believe that Jennie thought Marius was ridiculous. He fiddled with the lighter in his hands and took one last drag of his cigarette before he crushed it out on the table. "So uh what happened that summer?" No harm in asking, he thought. If she wasn't going to tell him, then fuck it. He wasn't going to push the matter but he was curious. What summer was she talking about? John had the memory of a goldfish when it came to remembering events concerning other people.

"Before your glorious return," she contemplated her cigarette, frowning at it as if it could explain it better than she could. "Suffice to say it's what happens when teenagers are stupid in Europe. Marius was thoughtless and selfish. I caused lots of property damage. And there were head injuries. Ask Manuel about his cane sometime."

"Ask Manuel about his cane. Got it." He didn't think he was going to remember do that but whatever. "And then...? What happened afterwards?"

Jennie shrugged. "We came back here. I didn't speak to him for a month. Then he got some sort of brain disease from Dr. McCoy's stalker," she frowned and paused, "and don't ask me to explain that one 'cause I don't get it either. Anyway. Long story short, he went nuts, I dropped a tree on his head, he got better and I called it even for the Europe thing. Then we told people we got married. The end."

John had no idea what to think of that. He simply shook his head and smarted out a grin. "This place is like soap opera central." His life had been pretty much 'normal' minus that disaster that was his trip to Vegas and his near death experiences in the Middle East.

"Welcome to Degrassi Mutant High. Except instead of alcoholism, std's and cheating on tests, we get kidnappings, explosions, and dinosaurs," Jennie smiled dryly. "So, you're one of the old guard. You tell me. Was it always like this or did things get even more special after I got here?"

He scratched a finger against his forehead. "Well, let's just say that, if this were a TV show? Well, we're definitely getting higher ratings these days."

"If this were a TV show I'd saw we were having a whopping case of writer breakdown. Second Law Of Metafictional Thermodynamics: The entropy of a fictional system whose writer is not in emotional equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at the writer's emotional equilibrium," Jennie ground out her out cigarette and dropped it into the can, feeling a vague sense of deja-vu. She shook her head and it quickly passed. "Anyway, I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who feels like the powers that be or the idiots in charge are trying to 'kick things up a notch.'"

"Huh." John just stared at her for a moment, looking at her funny before he stood up and tugged on his jacket. He didn't get a word of what she'd just said except for that last bit. "Well, it's been nice chatting with you, but I gotta go. Paperwork awaits." He made a face. "Don't get addicted to that," he nodded at her pack of cigarettes. "It's a filthy habit."

"I promise," Jennie said gamely, saluting him him a couple of fingers. "Ta John, don't get buried."

He snorted. "I'll see you around, Stavros."