Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses

[Cicada]

Giggle for giggle, law of equivalent exchange and all. Wait. Was that the actual scientific name or the FMA reference?

But yeah, Irene dumbly let the laughs and such loose, let them rattle her chest. So there was something else she didn't know. Typical, nothing to be surprised at there. So Abby had two dads. Dads squared. Double the father figures, double the fun. Huh. Irene barely had one father figure, and Abby here was pretty much swimming in them. Maybe that's why she was the cool one?

"Oooh, okay. So I guess we share opinions politically, then." The breath used on that sentence could probably have been used in a more constructive and less repetitive manner. "There probably are LGBT conservatives, I mean I wouldn't know off the top of my head." It was something that just couldn't be easily found, as far as Irene was concerned. Like the lost colony of Roanoke. Like the Higgs Boson. Wait, hadn't they found that one? Irene hadn't exactly payed the most attention to those particular developments... Like Dariuses' copy of Mario Kart. No, hold on. At some point Irene had totally bungled the simile. Something about conservatism. Maybe it had been her aborted attempt at a critique of Reaganomics. However that slotted into the conversation at hand.

"I mean... yeah, I agree. I dunno how else I can say that more eloquently. Like, essentially. Fuck the people who stand in the way of basic human decency." Irene's leg had started to twitch. Restlessness was slowly kneading it's familiar tingly touch into her thighs. Twitch. Twitch. "Like okay, I've seen a lot about it on Tumblr and all. Human sexuality and gender are far more than just a two-for-two sorta deal. You get all this stuff in between, and people shouldn't be railed on for living the lives they want. For railing the people they want." Twitchy-twitch. "I mean, as long as it's all consensual and follows the Geneva Convection. Convection? Wow."

[Emprexx Plush]

Irene was still in good spirits, so she didn't seem to mind the mix up. Abby was worried for a bit there that she could have been, or that she'd be embarrassed, some folks kind of fumble over that kind of thing and get caught up in the details and don't rightly know how to talk about it or move on. She was glad that Irene wasn't one of those types, though, it made talking to her so easy. Why hadn't they hung out more before?

"Y'know, I don't rightly understand it myself. Some people just have to involve themselves in what they don't understand, I suppose? Someone's always trying to run somebody else's life, as if their not busy enough sortin' through their own. Personally, I can't imagine having that kind of time!"

Her bright smile darkened as the shadows of Shelley danced across her thoughts. "I guess it's not too surprising, though. Some people...it just don't take somebody being different or strange to them, they'll hurt any old body they feel like. Even people they're supposed to love." She tried to force a smile and shake the shade out of her head as she looked back up at Irene. "Not much you can do than try to pick up the pieces they leave behind, though."

[Cicada]

"Personally, I can't imagine having that kind of time!"

Yeah 'cause she was too busy having the time to be Miss Save The World. Abby was essentially awesome, Irene had long ago decided, awesome to the point of being kind of intimidating. Even her family sich maximized the Tumblr points.

"I mean I totally get you there. I saw it on a blog." Irene half spoke straight over Abby, eager as always to put her thoughts to less-than-cohesive voice. "Lot of blogs, actually, there's like legitimately some differences in how some structures in the brain work between your average conserva-"

And then the mood suddenly, briefly, but more than perceptibly took a turn for the dour. More Tumblr points incoming, likely. Irene's mood proved as quicksilver as her everything else, the lips parted into a laugh mere moments prior sealed Ziploc tight. The rant that had been crystallizing imploded with a pathetic and noiseless squeal. What Abby had just said... No time to think over what had to be said. Just say it.

"Pick up the pieces... you're speaking from experience, aren't you?"

[Emprexx Plush]

"A bit, yeah..."

Abby didn't know what else to say for the moment. It was hard to be upbeat about this kinda thing, and she didn't want to drag Irene down. Normally she could spin right past dark thoughts, but...God knows, it weighs on a body after a little while, feeling so helpless. She wanted to do more, and she couldn't, and she wouldn't be able to for a long time. Even though she knew that was for the best, that she wasn't prepared to do anything more than be a quiet ear and a shoulder to cry on for the most part, it frustrated her to no end to have all these people hurting that she couldn't do anything for, no matter how hard she tried.

"Sorry, I just..." Oh no. Those were definitely tears, it wouldn't do to just start crying in the middle of a conversation like this, she couldn't drop this whole emotional mess on Irene, it wouldn't be fair! She did her best to smile and pretend there was something in her eye. "At the shelter, you see and, um, hear things, sometimes. But it's alright. You just have to do your best to make things work out, you know?"

[Cicada]

So...

Thoughts, just for a moment. Memories. Friends had come to her like this before. This and that and problems that numbered ninety-nine. Their lashes often already dripping with nettle stings of their not-so teenage anguish. Asimah, Miss Perfect herself, had once with breath smelling of something fermented and eyes threatening to erupt. Irene's shoulder had been there, every single time. Shit was well built, solid. But everything else, not so much. She'd never held back the barrier. Tears had always come somehow, every single pixels worth of saline crumpling Irene's heart like the one-ply tissue paper it was. Irene had never been able to do anything. Words, actions, those things she loved so much and threw around carelessly like the schoolyard bully. They all, like. Uh. Failed her. Was this why she wasn't the strong one, wasn't the cool one, wasn't the senpai-de-jour?

Wasn't Abby?

Turns out she was just Irene.

Fuuuck.

"I know, yeah." If words failed, more of them sometimes worked, right? Probability. Roll the dice. Play the roulette. Other metaphors. "I can't imagine." Well Irene could, but it was all just stereotypes. Bullies and screamers and baby mama drama in high-def. What was she supposed to say to someone who knew the real thing? All the things she wasn't capable of saying, they were right there, gently shimmering the prettiest little trails down Abby's cheek. IMAX quality. "I mean, uh. If you want to talk about it." Irene's voice was mute, quietly unsteady. Which still meant loud and proud, but without the polyphonic vibrancy it normally carried. The others back then had all reacted badly when she'd looked like she was freaking out at the possibility of a definite conversation. She tried her hardest to not look unsettled.

Trying didn't equal success. As Abby well knew.

[Emprexx Plush]

Oh, she'd really done it now. This poor sweet girl just wanted some company and a brief chit chat between classes and she'd gone and dragged everything down talking about things she had no right or reason to spread. How selfish could she be to force her feelings on somebody else like that? She was usually good at keeping this kind of thing under control, but the emotions had gotten right under her skin this time.

She was in over her head. She needed to talk to somebody, that was for sure. Not Irene though, that would be too much to lay on her. They barely knew each other, and all of this already had her looking so out of sorts. It was best just to move on and try to salvage things in a happier direction.

Abby shook her head gently and tried to smile to salvage the situation. "Oh, no, no, don't worry about it, it's fine. I just, I had a little moment. Don't worry about it!" Should she wipe the tears away, or would that only make it more obvious that she was covering up? Would it be uncomfortable to leave them there? Lord, she didn't want to make things even worse on Irene, she'd already done enough! With a little shake she wiped the tears away and sighed. "I'm so sorry, Irene, I don't know what's gotten into me all the sudden."

[Cicada]

The tears went away, but like those other times before nothing really seemed to clear. When the tears went away things were supposed to get better, right? But Irene would always somehow get the sense that nothing had resolved. Nothing clear cut. Irene flailed at it for a moment, blankly observed Abby. The way she smiled and the way it seemed like that smile wasn't complete. Like a sketch, a moment only barely captured in flesh-tone. Wobbly lines. Finger painting. Irene's compulsion to reach out and trace over the contours of Abby's face was only barely ignored.

"Well, it happens to everyone." Wasn't entirely true. Sometimes a 'little moment' could be something more. Something to puzzle and solve out like a textbook problem. Irene didn't always get the best grades. "I, uh..."

Words.

"Hope you're feeling better now!" Really it was more like 'hope you're feeling better now?' The exclamation point didn't really avoid the fate of being a glorified question mark. Irene continued to wonder. To remember how she'd wondered so many times before, and how every single time it had gone:

"Well I guess I should be going now. Class and all. We should talk again sometime though, you're super cool Abby!" That, at least, was totes true. Irene got the inkling that what she was doing was totally not the way to go about it. Well it had always gone alright prior. It wasn't like her sister had dumped her for doing the wrong thing. Or her old friends... um. Well, okay. Some had. "Here's my number." Irene blurted it out, managed to slip a nervous giggle at the '69' in the final four digits. It was always nice to give the old number out. A lot of people in the school had it. It was a typical Djezari closing statement, her phone number. Always worked. No matter what.

"Cya!"

If there had been a door for Irene to awkwardly stall at and debate the merits of closing or leaving open she'd have been a bit longer.

But she just walked off, but not without an obvious backwards glance or a few.

((Irene Djezari continued in Dance or Die))

[Emprexx Plush]

See, everything was alright. She'd even made a new friend. That was something to be positive about, wasn't it? Maybe that was the plan for her today all along, to just take her mind off of this whole thing and let her get some space in the company of a lovely person.

That sounded right. It felt right. That's how things were supposed to work, after all. Everything had a purpose.

She tried to keep that in mind as the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach kept gnawing at her on the way back to class and beyond.

((Abby Floyd Continued Wasserwebber))