and everything will be all right [St John]

[lovegonetowaste]

After Ramon is settled with Charlene, Nica is kind of at a loss for what to do. She doesn't want to sleep (she'll say it's because she's not tired, but she is, she just doesn't want to go to sleep and relive what just happened), and she doesn't want to impose on anyone. She ends up doing exactly what she was doing the first night here; sitting in

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[tendencytostart]

St. John comes back very, very late, and unlocks the door to his and Ramon's room with not exactly the air of someone trying to be quiet, but more 'if I don't do everything very slowly right now my head is going to explode.' On another person it might be construed as thoughtful consideration for the fact that it's so late, however, and either way he is very pleasantly surprised to find the room empty of Ramon. If he'd come back to a crying roommate, he would have just gone to sleep on a park bench. This is something he's done before.

But he won't have to. He can just flop bonelessly onto the bed, face down, Vans still on. In a second he'll get up and have a cigarette. In just a second.

PS His flopping was probably loud enough that if anyone was in the other room, his presence has been made audibly known.

[lovegonetowaste]

The door between their two rooms opens a crack -- just enough that Nica can check who it is -- and then further. She doesn't come all the way in; not because she's polite, but because she's cautious. She leans against the doorframe, not quite giving anything away.

She barely ever does.

"St John?" she says, softly. She's not asking if it is him -- that much is obvious, despite the seemingly uncharacteristic quiet. Anyone would be...different than usual, after what they witnessed tonight. At least, that's what Nica thinks--hopes. She's asking, with two syllables and a lilt, if he's okay, if he's awake, what's going on, what does he know, what can he tell her, is it okay for her to be here or should she go back to her own room?

Yeah. All that.

[tendencytostart]

He lifts his head just enough to open one bleary eye, not exactly smiling, but his expression softens. He pats the space in the bed next to him with one floppy arm and offers his customary greeting. Apparently nothing can get him to say more than 'Hey,' not the apocalypse, not a roommate who can talk to the dead, not a woman blowing her brains out three yards away from him.

[lovegonetowaste]

She leaves the door open -- it provides them with the illusion this isn't as private as it is. She's not sure who she's trying to reassure with that, or what she even means by it. Anyway, she pads over to his bed on bare feet and sits down, pulling one leg up so she can hold her knee against her chest, resting her cheek against her knee.

"Who were you talking to?" she asks, after a moment's silence. She assumes he was -- that he didn't go back inside just to ogle the corpse, or some other equally creepy thing that she knows people do but hopes none of the people she's met would be interested in. It's not really a conscious hope -- more of a teenage girl's assumption that the harshness of the world won't touch her.