checkyourpulse | (no subject)

It's hard for a crew of two out in the zones , but they manage. They make it work even when it seems like it doesn't. Honestly, it suits Nola just fine. No, Phantom. Phantom Arcade, baddest bitch in the game. Having Jesse's-- Diesel's back is as easy as just having her own. A crew of two is all they need. Easier to get around in places they shouldn't be. Easier to keep themselves fed. Easier to turn a profit out in the desert.

Little more difficult to acquire the product, but that sure as fuck doesn't stop them.

They have their ways. He drives, she keeps watch. He gets them in, she keeps them out of sight. He gets what they need and she keeps them alive. Nola's the muscle and Jesse's the brains-- no, shut up, I'm serious! That's how they roll. And they just fucking rolled right out of the city with a shitload of Bli meds to trade, sell, give away. Whatever they want! NO RULES! They can do anything. They can be anything. All the shiny, shiny new is going to her head a bit, making her a little more reckless every day. The radio says don't be a hero, but that's what she wants. And a hero's gotta start somewhere, gotta make a name for herself. Fucking over Bli is the best way to do that.

Spreading pills around to the people that can't kick the habit, well ... do whatcha gotta do. Supply and demand, right?

They're holed up in what used to be a truck stop. Gas is long dried up, but it's a roof over their heads and a counter to move their merch. Truck's parked out back, covered, hidden. Lights are off. You don't usually move at night. Sun goes down, you stay where you are if you can help it. They're not expecting customers, at least not until Dr. D. spreads the word to the herd. Might be a few people desperate enough, and they definitely know where they are, but it's probably gonna be a quiet night.

Nola hates quiet nights. Which, unfortunately, tends to make her more obnoxious than usual.

"D, you swipe anything good? Anything liquid? Anything sugar?! What's left? What's left?! Starving, D. Come on!" She stares up at him eagerly from her spot on the floor with her back against the wall and her legs flopped out in front of her. She's gonna shoot someone's foot off if she keeps messing with her gun like that, and it probably won't be her own.

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Jesse gives a whole-hearted sigh as he crosses the room and hops himself up onto the counter, cigarette dangling haphazardly from his mouth as he fiddles with a small box. "Ya know they're bringin' back this nicotine gum shit?" he asks, blatantly ignoring her own questions for the time being. He shakes the box in her direction before he tosses it over to her, takes a long drag off his cigarette before he leans back on his hand with a cheeky grin. "Maybe I oughta actually try quittin'." Fat chance in hell. He nods at Nola. "Go 'head. Chew on that."

Heh. Heh heh.

But, no, it was a good haul. It was a fucking fruitful haul, they got even more than Jesse was expecting, place stocked to the nines and the one guard keeping watch locked in a porta potty for the most of the day. And they'd gotten everything, from oxy to sedatives to fucking Apokyn for a few of their Parkinson's customers. Some real helpful shit in this run. It was nice, sometimes, to break off from just pandering to addicts and Ritalin rats, get some real helpful shit out there in the open where it needed to be.

"Alright, alright, alright," he concedes at long last, and cigarette in mouth again, he claps both hands against the counter, lifting himself up a solid couple of inches before he leaps off and lands solidly on his feet. "C'mere. You want we should eat something? Let's check out what we got. Wouldja-" He waves impatiently at her for her to come to him. "-quit it with the damn gun, you're gonna get us both maimed."

Wow. WOW, JESSE! She doesn't catch the box so much as hold her hands up pathetically to deflect it while it just kind of bounces off and falls to the floor. She frowns, picks it up, and whips it back at him! GUM? You don't digest gum. It's not nearly sugar-covered enough to even count as food. "Chew your FACE OFF, more like!"

She's smiling because they did good. She's happy because he seems pretty happy. Despite bickering the entire fucking time and a little on the way back, they did good and they're gonna get to do more good come sun-up. She likes it when Jesse doesn't have to play the shady fuck supplying the junk to the junkies. He doesn't have to be the bad guy all the time. They're supposed to be heroes! Right?

"Won't be spoutin' off about my damn gun when it saves your ass for the billionth time! I'm at the READY! Gotta go. On guard. Practicing! One of us gotta be prepared, D. I'm so prepared-- oh man!" Nope. No, it's okay. She's fine. She just fumbled the hot-pink plastic while she was getting to her feet, but it's fine! She caught it! We're good! Have a reassuring smile as she sidles up next to him, finally putting the firearm away. Back into the hip holster you go!

"Hey, guess what. You're a mess." Pot. This is Kettle. Sup, yo?

And he doesn't so much dodge the box as he just- casually leans a bit to the side as it whizzes right by him, no harm, no foul. The grin he gives her is something that's almost insultingly shit-eating.

Seriously, her and that fucking gun. The day Jesse gets shot in the face by that thing, the look on him isn't even going to be one of surprise. In fact, it's going to be much like the one he's giving her now, a deadpan kind of thing as he just debates confiscating the damn thing from her. Wouldn't be the first time. "Seriously? Save my ass some other time. Now's grub time."

The dig gets a hand planted onto her cheek, a playful push to the side as Jesse starts to make his way into the back where they're keeping all the merchandise. The store itself has been long since picked clean but there's boxes in the back, crates and all that, and there's gotta be something good enough to chow down on in one of them. "Tell me somethin' I don't know," Jesse shoots back, sniffs and pinches his nose as he draws a flashlight out of his pocket and starts poking around one of the crates.

He glances over his shoulder back to Nola, and shines the light in her face. "'Sides, it takes one to know one."

Are you sure that is a good idea? Gun confiscation? It didn't go very well the last billion times he did it, not going to go any better if he tries it again. It's away, anyway! It's done. Not like she plays with her gun any more than he plays with his! Heh. Heheheheh. Gun.

OH MY GOD NO FACE PUSHING! She's still grinning, albeit a little more pout-like, as she follows him into the back. Then suddenly FLASHLIGHT! Oh god-- so bright. Ow. Okay, wow. She hisses and crouches down out of the beam, covering her eyes.

"Warn a gal next time! My precious peepers!" And then she suddenly lunges forward without warning, pushing his butt (and the rest of him) into the side of the crate he's rummaging through! Take that! The giggle that accompanies her crouch-moving up to the crate to huddle next to it, grasp the edge and peek inside, is kind of maniacal.

"Hey. Hey, Diesel, you remember pop tarts? I miss pop tarts. Way back when, used to LOVE that shit. Coulda lived offa just pop tarts! Every meal! You know the crazy ones with the purple icing and the blue squiggle? An' when you opened 'em up, was like they were bleeding?! You know? Loved those ones."

It's not really so hard to knock him off-balance - he's leaning over fully already, most of his weight resting on his hands, and the shove sends him reeling. He tries not to fall into the product itself and ends up headbutting a stack of boxes in front of him, swearing loudly and rubbing the flat of his palm hard into his noggin afterwards. It earns Nola a haphazard kick in her direction, but it's not like it's anywhere in the neighborhood of actually hitting her.

"You wanna eat sometime today?" he shoots back in a voice that's almost threatening, but he cracks a half a smile anyway and picks up the cigarette that fell out of his mouth and onto the concrete floor back here. "You're a fuckin' terror, you're killin' me here."

He paws through the box he's got underneath him now, sitting on the edge. Mostly pills in this one alone, nothing of interest that they want right now - well, he says 'they', but he tosses and catches a bottle of Valium before he starts prying open the vial for himself. "'Do I remember pop tarts,' she asks," he scoffs, glancing up to her as he shakes around the pills inside. "The fuck are you talkin' about, everyone knows the hot fudge sundae ones were the best ones out there."

Yeah, sure, it's because he's already leaning, not because he has the balance of a toddler on roller skates. Heh, that would be awesome to see. Little motorbaby rolling around in the dust-- ... there is no good ending to that scenario. Not out here. Don't get dark, Nola, just the lack of food in your system keeping your brains unbalanced as Jesse is.

She is a terror. But she's his terroer and they're stuck with each other and anyone else would have dropped her by now or left her on the side of the road with that goddamn gun of hers. Scratch that, that happened already. A few times. Then this unholy combination got stuck together and have been stuck since. It was luck. A lotta luck.

"No way! They weren't real poptarts. Poptarts gotta have the fruit and they gotta have the crust you don't wanna eat! Those ones were chocolate! There were all delicious, not just mostly! They don't count." She whines, looking up at him with a grin that would send the cheshire cat home in shame. "Miss waffles, too. Miss fruit roll ups! ... What about you?"

She'll just let Jesse do the digging, do the work, and be happy with whatever he gives her... but will likely complain anyway for show. What? They have a dynamic! Plus she can't help getting into things she picks up and that's where they get problems. Real ones.