1964-06-09 - Love Is a Four Letter Word
Summary: Josie and Del define the relationship in a way that counts.
Related: Coming Clean
Theme Song: Only Happy When It Rains Garbage
delphyne josie 


So, it's been a day since The Dinner, which went… well, better than Del had expected anyway. Currently, she's laying on Josie's couch, her eyes closed as she has a nasty looking bruise on the center of her forehead. Probably from when she decided to try and headbutt her way through the table.

Unfortunately, the table was thinking, "No you won't, either."

*

Josie had looked sheepish the whole way home. Del went to the couch and Josie had quietly retreated to wherever Josies go when they aren't making a fool out of themselves. Another dimension maybe. In the Josie dimension she has pulled up a chair and sits a couple meters behind the couch, staring at a wall like she intends to bore through it. From this position she quietly watches over Del on the couch, fussing over her from afar and without a word. Both of Josephine's hands are folded over her knee and she just… Sits there. Completely still.

*

Del blinks, and says, "Well, I think it went well, honestly… though I didn't think Lambert had such hard tables there." She hmms, "What's that thing you have… aspirins?" Her eye cracks open as she sits up a bit, looking over at Josie with a wry expression, "What's wrong?" Because, well, Josie never is this quiet. Even when she's sleeping.

Come to think of it, especially when she's sleeping.

*

There's a deep breath as Josie considers this for a long moment. She holds it and then pauses, shaking her head. Out comes a cigarette. The sound of a flame catching is deafeningly quiet in the the otherwise still apartment. Smoke is soon curling up toward the ceiling. Josie taks a moment to toke on it before replying.

"…Why are you here?" The girl asks this honestly, without an self-pity inher voice, not even the fractional movement of a tone. It's cold. Matter-of-fact. She clutches the cigarette between two fingrs, her silhouette on the wall in front of Delphyne to mimic the motion.

"Babs is a nice girl. She's good for you." There's a beat before Josephine adds, "About the only thing I'm good for most of the time is a quickie in the bathroom and a pint someone spat in because I was a dick to their girl."

It might hit Delphyne then. Josie is completely stone cold sober. She hasn't even had a joint today.

*

Delphyne blinks in surprise at that, "I'm here… because I care about you, Josephine." She normally says Josie, but this isn't the way Josie normally sounds, so she slips into that instead. She sits up, and looks at Josie with no small amount of puzzlement, "I thought I made that clear." She sounds confused, and more than a little worried, looking over at Josie curiously.

*

"You probably shouldn't." Josie sucks in another breath of smoke and holds it for the space of several heartbeats. She exhales in a cloud of white that briefly obscures her face, leaning forward slightly as she does. Josie brings up her feet until she's resting her heels on the bottom strut of the chair, right elbow on her thigh while she holds the cigarette with her left hand.

"You can't even get a good night's sleep with me here." Jo rolls her eyes then, gesturing through the air with the cigarette in a way that traces briefly resonant symbols in the air that quickly turn to nothing. "I'm not good for you, Del. You can't tell me you think I'm, like, a well-adjusted person. I'm more likely to get into a fight when she goes out than to remember to get groceries.

"This is the first time I've been sober the entire time we've been together. Completely clean, I mean. No drugs." Josie's dropped all the slang too. Her voice is clear as she speaks and she shakes her head once, shrugging her right shoulder diffidently. "You can do better. You have done better. You can definitely do safer. Just think about how we met for a second."

*

Delphyne looks at Josie, and stands up a bit, then shakes her head, "Josie…" She walks over and sits down in a chair next to Josie, the gorgon looking at the other woman with a smile, "Maybe I don't want well-adjusted. How many well-adjusted people do you know run around and act like a vigilante in the night?" Her head tilts a bit, "You're a good warrior, a good lover, and a good friend." She looks about to say something else, but changes her mind at the last minute, instead going, "Josie, if I thought I shouldn't be here, I wouldn't be here. But you're important to me, and I care about you."

*

Josie lifts her free hand and places it over her right eye for a second. he swallows, hard. the cigarette is allowed to burn away quietly while she thinks for a moment. Blue eyes shift to Delphyne and then she shakes her head. "I didn't mean because of my wandering around in the night and swinging a sword around like a lunatic. That's probably the safest thing about me half the time." Finally Josie sighs and leans her head back so she can look up toward the ceiling.

"Look at me and tell me seriously you don't wish I'd lay off the drugs and shut up for a second." Josie shakes her head and then slides down from her chair to come to her feet. "I'm sorry." She is gesturing broadly with her cigarette as she moves, like a popular moviestar of the wrong gender.

"Probably." Josie turns her head just enough to look past her shoulder at Delphyne before breathing a quiet sigh and stalking toward the bedroom. "If you think you don't want well-adjusted you're really fucking kidding yourself, darling."

*

Delphyne moves to stand up, keeping her voice even, "Well, of course I worry about you, but I worry because I care about you, Josie!" She follows Josie, continuing to talk, "And I might be new here, but I'm pretty sure that well-adjusted people don't exist in this crazy place." Well, that's a hard point to argue, honestly, as she places a hand on the bedroom door, looking back at Josie, "Why are you running away from me?" Either metaphorically or literally, your pick.

*

Josie flops hard on the bed, landing with her shoulder hitting it and the cigarette held aloft so it doesn't hit the sheets. She's shaking her head at the question, staring at the window. Still fully clotheed other than her bare feet. Leather jacket, jeans, t-shirt. Pretty much as unfeminine a look as you could hope for. Hand-crafted to… Get someone to look at her the wrong way.

"I'm not. I asked you a question. Why on earth would you choose to spend your time watching me hop bars and break noses over stupid shit then get completely wasted on bargain drugs? I know you, Del. I know you want more than random violence and cheap drinks and rough sex, or whatever the fuck." Josie is just staring at the wall at this point, cigarette still in hand.

"This is the longest I've kept anyone around in a long time. By now I've probably cheated on them or thrown them out. Or they've left. Everyone thinks they can fix me. ANd you can't. I'm not broken. You can't put back pieces that aren't there. But I do know it fucking sucks for whoever's on the other end… And unlike the last bitch you're not ready to put the pieces back together." Then Josie adds quietly, "Do you really think Barbara's going to put up with me for long?"

*

Delphyne walks in and sits on the edge of the bed, glancing over at Josie, "I didn't think the sex was all that rough, honestly…" She then sighs, "Humor… it's a little difficult out here."

She shakes her head and looks at Josie, "Maybe I think you've been showing me how this world really is, instead of idealized views. Maybe I think that we all have damage, and we all express it differently, including Barbara." What that is, she doesn't elaborate, as she keeps going, "But there's a problem with what you said."

Delphyne looks at Josie, "You think you're keeping me around. You're not understanding the fact that I want to stay around, because you show me a side of this world that people try to ignore. You show me what's real, here, and you care about me, damaged or not. And I care about you."

*

Josie covers her eyes with her left hand, the lit end of her cigarette pointed toward the ceiling as smoke slowly covers the room. It's just about burned down to a nub at this point, since she doesn't actually use a filter. Josie looks at it, shakes her head, and extinguishes it against her hand with a soft hiss, jaw clenched. Scorched flesh, though it is nearly out and doesn't leave as bad a burn as might otherwise be the case. …Josie has no scars from this sort of behaviour, either.

There's a deep breath and it is held carefully for a long moment before Josie rolls over onto her stomach and buries her face against the bed. SHe reaches out toward Delphyne and gestures a couple times quickly toward the bed. Her words are rather muffled as she responds with, "You just deserve better. An that's not because I'm the w-worst person earth or because I need to change me for something. I just…" She sucks in a sharp breath, a little raggedly, and then begins to speak more quickly, words coming at a frenetic intensity, half piled on one another.

"Just. I'm not a great person to be around, most of the time? And I don't think I want to be. But I want you… I want you to be okay." Josie doesn't look up for now. "I came here to tear apart an unbreakable curse with my bare fucking hands and I'm not going to stop even if I've chopped my way through every half-baked mystic shithead between here and Los Angeles to do it. And if means smoking five joints a day so I can keep my nerves together long enough to go on another fishing expedition or drink a gallon of coffee so I can stay up and read another chapter from useless Sumerian text on baking spells, then…" She shrugs.

"I do care about you. A lot. And I really don't want you to go. But I want you getting hurt even less. You or Babs."

*

Delphyne moves over and nestles up with Josie, sliding her arms around her, "All the more reason you need my help. Amazons do know a thing or two about unbreakable curses and things like that, after all. There's no reason you have to face this alone. Both Barbara and I can help you immensely, she's… well, she has a bit of a night life, like we do." She kinda hints at it, but doesn't out and out SAY it, hoping that's enough, and she hugs Josie tight, "And neither of us are without skills. We need each other, Josie." She then kisses Josie's temple, cradling the woman on the bed as she ponders… a kernel of an idea forming in her mind.

*

"…Oh. You didn't think the sex was all that rough? Because, I mean, if you want to do something crazy…" Josie sounds serious for a heartbeat but then she takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. There's a second of tension and then she goes slack in the gorgon's eyes and sighs softly as she buries her head against her pillow.

"So, mmm. You were out with Babs yesterday, right? How'd that turn out? Or you could've been doing something else. I didn't follow you. That would be crazy." Josie's a little hoarse maybe but her voice is calm. Her heartbeat… Is relatively calm. The burn on her right hand is pretty glaringly obvious, however, fresh and livid. The brunette continues to ignore it right now.

*

Delphyne smiles a little, "Actually, it was doing something else. My Princess requested my presence, to talk about a few things, so I was obligated to respond. Royalty." She looks a bit guilty about that, then looks at that burn, "I didn't think you would follow me, but you're more than welcome to do so. But first…" She looks at Josie, and kisses her gently again, "We need to take care of that burn before it gets infected. I might be an Amazon, but I'm not a barbarian."

*

"It's fine. Don' worry about the burn," Josie responds dismissively. "I just didn't want to damage the sheets. I'll take care of it in the morning." She closes her eyes then and takes a deep breath, in through her nose. "I have something that'll clear it up. GOod as new. Like I did the last time I shoved a cigarette at me. Last time it wasn't so muc the being lazy thing." Josie returns the kiss gently, sighing softly as she does. She blinks her slightly reddened eyes a few times and sucks in a deep breath. "I still don't think Babs is going to be thrilled with either of us when she finds out what I am like." A beat. "Guess we'll have to win her over."

*

Delphyne pauses, thinking about that, then she says with quiet seriousness, "I think… you underestimate the weird shit and behavior she sees, love." She smiles a bit, "I'm not saying everything about her, only because while I do trust you, it isn't my secret to tell. If she allows me to tell you everything, I will in a heartbeat. But it isn't up to me what she does with her secrets." Del's cool fingers glide over Josie's cheek, and she smiles, "And I would love to help you break the unbreakable curse."

*

"I'm not talking about weird shit, Del." Josie shrugs. "Most people aren't as tolerant of drugs and booze and all that bs as you are." Josie buries her head against Delphyne's shoulder then. "We should sleep for a little bit. But first I should probably go light up a joint." Josie sighs at that, more comfortably than before. "Thank you…." That's mostly a whisper. "For not trying to make me change. And being here when I wake up?" Silence follows that statement."And if you want to help me figure shit out then I guess you can. But it's kind of a problem since I'm not really supposed to tell you what's going on."

*

Delphyne smiles, "Of course I'll stay with you, Josie." She nods, holding Josie close as she whispers, "You never have to worry about me leaving." And that's it, really, as she just holds the woman close, her own body remarkably cool beneath her clothing as… well, the advantages of being cold-blooded and all, especially in a New York summer.

*

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