xp_logs | Artie and Rachel, Wednesday night (Reply)

Rachel as a toddler stumbled off a picnic blanket, barefooted and unsteady on her feet for three steps before falling and looking around startled as Nate's hands reached for her, one with splinted fingers

Out on the lawn, you could almost pretend that the world was the same. Artie was sitting in one of the deck chairs, coat and hat on to deal with the cold, mittened fingers holding a mostly empty bottle of polish ... something that he couldn't read between his knees and an abandoned glass on the grass. It was cold enough that frost was forming and he was starting to wonder if maybe he shouldn't go indoors but, eh. He poured another drink.

A sudden weight was dropped onto his head and shoulders, thick fabric in the colours of the sunset pooling into his lap and onto the damp grass. Rachel came around and dropped to the ground next to him, clad in little more than jeans and a blue jumper herself, a mug of steaming something in her hands.

"I don't really know you, but my money is on the lot that says 'not impervious to the cold'," she said by way of introduction.

Artie blinked, pulling the blanket off his head. Great. Rachey the wonder child who should be ten but wasn't. Fuck. He gave a one shouldered shrug and finished his glass of whatever it was. "Not that imperative to could," he replied through his synthesiser and blinked at it. "Bloody autocorrect."

She reached over and poured him another glass, as though it were the most natural thing in the world for her to do. Then raising the bottle up so the porch light hit the label, Rachel squinted at it. "I guess if you don't need to voice it aloud, you don't need to know how to pronounce this shit."

"If I wasn't drunk, I'd type it into this and show you," Artie replied, wobbly text floating in the air between them and signed "Thanks" for the refill.

"That's okay. I don't need to know it." She capped the bottle, settled it in between the both of them and drank another mouthful of hot chocolate. "Did you have dinner?"

Artie paused, considering before showing her a picture of a hotdog from a cart and a coffee. Yes. Ish. Dinnerish.

"Well. I didn't," she said, nose crinkling a little. She fished out her phone and opened a food delivery service app, which was basically her only way of feeding herself nowadays. "Pizza. With extra pepperoni. Should go well with foreign vodka."

Artie nodded and replied in a confusing jumble of images - pizza pizza and then a cat made of rasberries, sitting on a pizza as he swallowed the last of his glass. He put the empty glass down and pointed across the lawn. An image of Rachel as a toddler stumbled off a picnic blanket, barefooted and unsteady on her feet for three steps before falling and looking around startled as Nate's hands reached for her, one with splinted fingers.

The trees and the winter brown grass were still visible before the image faded into sparks of light.

She quirked a smile as the images dissipated, before going back to her pizza ordering. It was hard to tell if her expression was sad or not, but there was quiet serenity in place of the angry grief she had been nursing before their world had ended.

“Why were his fingers injured?”

He shrugged. Picture of Nathan, the words 'seemed like he was always hurt' flashing underneath. He picked up his phone and typed into the synthesiser for a moment. "The world ended a site along. I fucking miss the way things are. This is all buckshot and Franken very cat and people oh korea attains also needs faces. I miss my sucking fries."

"I'm sorry," she sighed, phone in her lap now that dinner had been taken care of. Nudging her shoulder against his, the redhead idly plucked at the grass. She could not be a hundred percent certain of what he had intended to actually type, but it was not difficult to guess at the general meaning. "I miss them too."

Rachel had run through the list of the dead so many times, it was easy to bring it to the front of her mind now. Some she had lost twice over, others she knew only by name. "I think it especially sucks that we can't talk about it openly."

Artie gave a bitter nod and stood abruptly, stumbling and swaying. The words 'fuck this bullshit' appeared overhead, expanding out to fill the sky for a moment.

Rachel actually snapped a picture. Then tugged at the corner of the throw. "Sit down, please," she requested. "I was using you as a heater."

He sat bonelessly, folding at the knees and hips and reaching one arm to Rachel.

Her hesitation was short enough that the drunk man would not have noticed it. But she eventually ducked under his arm and settled against the soft fabric of the throw she had liberated from her under-utilised rooms. She felt warmer almost immediately, slinging his arm around her waist as she would with Haller, and grabbing at his bottle of vodka again. “Another? Does it help?”

Artie pushed her hand away and shook his head as the world tilted on its axis for a moment and he swallowed nausea. "no." the text vanished and he gestured with his free hand for a moment, not quite signing before replying in an image. The world. Whole and complete and then broken and put back together, seams and sticky tape covering it. A bottle of vodka. A roll of sticky tape. She'd figure it out. The image of the world crumbled, pieces falling away despite the tape.

The alcohol was put to the side, and the hot chocolate finished, the images in the air disappearing into nothingness. Rachel sighed and gazed out across the grounds, wondering at how to mend broken hearts. She patted the back of his hand when her handphone buzzed. “Food’s here. Should probably go get it before one of the kids makes off with it. Want some?”

Artie nodded, climbing to his feet again and swaying. He nodded again, gagged and swallowed hard and picked up the blanket, wrapping it around himself like a shawl. He left the bottle where it was.

Rachel walked beside him companionably, her gait almost serene as he stumbled back towards the house in his drunken state. She made no move to steady him, but her solid presence let him know that there would be someone there if he ever did actually fall, if only to make sure he got up again.