[ prp ] like real people do (taymerica)

[Rejam]

lizbot

He does look at her then, finally, with an odd sort defiant look of his own, but only for a half-second before he reaches to put out his cigarette.

In an ideal world this would have gone much, much differently, but if they've learned anything in the past several months it's that they do not live in anything like an ideal world.

His voice is level, unshaken, calm. The same voice with which he'd been saying she's fine all night; the same way he'd asked her if Indian food was OK.

"Would you marry me?" he says. And then, with practicality, as always: "I don't have a ring."  

[lizbot]

There's nothing hidden in the series of expressions that pass over her features. Joy. Disbelief. Consideration. And then it draws up into an unhappy caution, anger simmering at the edges.

"Is this...is this just to help me?" America Jones isn't one to sell herself short, but right now she can't for the life of her understand why he'd want to marry her with all her strange problems and the weight of a world he can only see the edges of bearing down.

Unless it was because of those problems. Because he liked to help her. Because, maybe, he pitied her.

rejam

 

[Rejam]

lizbot

"I still don't see how the ******** it would be any help to you to you have to make time for this on top of everything else you have going on," he says flatly, "so no." He regrets putting out the cigarette. "This is selfish. I'm asking because I want to. I want this. And because I don't want to have to pick you up at a ******** police station again but if it's there or the hospital or wherever the ******** it ends up being I want to be able to shove a ring in their skeptical ******** faces, but that's just a bonus. Would you," he says again, with emphasis this time, the same way he would to pick a fight with her, "marry me."  

[lizbot]

She makes a disgusted sound, "How many times do I gotta tell you that the time I get with you is what gets me through everything else? You always gotta turn those things 'round like I'm wrong or maybe even insulting you," America gripes, getting up from her food nest to face him, hands on hips.

"I might die soon," she states bluntly, "and I might die a thousand years from now. And if I live a couple more months or for ******** ever, if I can spend this life with you, I want to. So I do but no takebacks and I want get a house too and I don't need no ring right now but at least hold my ******** hand."

rejam

 

[Rejam]

lizbot

He does not tell her that she won't die soon, even though he likes to make promises he can't keep.

"OK," he says, reaching for her hand, pulling her over. "And we'll talk about finding a place tomorrow. I've been saving up listings. And we'll go get a ring, whenever you want. Tomorrow, next week. Sorry it won't be a super nice one." He presses his face to her hair and agrees, all his emotion spent but his gratitude and relief immediately obvious anyway: "No takebacks." And then, because he needs to shake the tension out of himself somehow: "You smell like ******** and curry, it's gross."  

[lizbot]

"And you're gonna marry all this gross," she taunts, feeling fully and undeniably like America Jones, as she should be (even if she can't always be.)