» THAT GIRL'S A GENIUS //

[jacob]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,300] BETH AS CELINA | MEHH THIS SUCKS IM SORRY :c Jacob Colin Griffiths was a cop-turned-homicide-detective, he had been working for the police force for four years total, and yet why he was in the hospital was not for any exciting, intriguing story worth telling, it was because he had to have his appendix removed. Basically, the lamest hospital visit that Jake could have ever asked for. If only it had been something at least slightly interesting and less.. normal. Though knowing his luck, if he ever got shot it would be in the bum and during friendly fire. Something humorous, but still slightly embarrassing. If he had to be shot, he would at least like it to be a good story to tell people. Was he the only person who thought about that as they laid in a hospital bed in recovery from appendicitis?  Because that was what Jacob was thinking about, unable to sleep, staring up at the ceiling. Would it be rude of him to get that nurse to come back and talk to him again? She hadn't seemed too friendly, but he was basically desperate for some kind of human interaction. How was he supposed to get her to stay, though? He was a patient, didn't he have some kind of privilige or something? He didn't know. He just wanted to do something since apparently sleep was not something he could accomplish on this hospital bed. But where was that call button he'd told himself he'd remember's location? It took him a few seconds before he found it, and pushed it, then laid back again, feeling satisfied and smiling softly to himself. Hopefully his nurse didn't have any more pressing matters to attend to. Of course, if she did, he'd have to let her go, but hopefully, seeing as the only thing on television were documentaries or something and those were just so boring. Jake really didn't want to be sleepless and stuck watching documentaries. That was like.. Torture. What was he supposed to do, trapped in a hospital, anyway? Sing? Though that was something that Jake would do, break out into song in the middle of the night, he was slightly afraid he would wake up his roommate, or whatever you wanted to call the sleeping log who was occupying the bed on the other side of the room. Though nothing else seemed to wake him. Which, now that he thought about it, was a little creepy or foreboding, since they were in a hospital.

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[celina]

For a good five months Celina had been working in the birthing unit of the hospital. She assisted doctors as mothers screamed and shoved out equally loud little parasites from their body. Of course, she quickly learned that mothers didn’t like her referring to their kid-- or sometimes kids-- like that. Hell, they didn’t even like when she said fetus. Both were technically correct terms. A parasite by definition was an organism that lives in a host and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host’s expense. A fetus was the unborn offspring of a mammal. In what ways was she wrong?

But apparently she was. She learned to pretend to enjoy babies. She smiled when the mothers smiled; she nodded politely when the mothers asked if their kid was the cutest thing in the world; she gave the fathers looks of pity when their wife was about to cut off the circulation in their hand while birthing their child. On more than a few occasions she’d even attended to the father after he fainted mid-birth. That was a more common occurrence than one might think. However, a few floors above in surgery, three of the full time nurses went away on maternity leave. And since Celina had the lowest seniority due to being fresh out of school, she drew the short stick and was moved to pre- and post-op care.

To be honest, she preferred it there. While she always had a lingering discomfort in being around other people, she was comfortable enough to function in society (for the most part). The good thing about being in pre/post-op was that most of the patients she looked after were above 60 and just had a broken hip. She swore she lost count after the fifth broken hip. In the winter it was about ten times worse. She almost wondered if it would be better if they just sawed the elderly in half like a magic trick. But alas, that would be more likely to kill them than to help them.

Sighing to herself, she redid the knot in her hair. She preferred to have her ginger mane free, but she wasn’t allowed to when she was working. Instead, she kept her unruly mess of curls up. She absentmindedly chewed on her bottom lip as she filled out some charts. It was late in the evening and most surgeries were done for the day, with the exception of emergencies, so all she had to do was look after her patients and most of them were asleep.

Except for one, it seemed. The beeper by her waist went off and she looked down to see which room it was. It was one of her younger patients-- a rarity, and although he was older than her, it wasn’t by much. How old did his chart say he was again? She tried to think but the late night shift made her memory escape her. Mid-twenties, at least.

Like a good little nurse she scuttled off to do her duties and found the young man to be bright and awake, whereas his roommate was completely knocked out. She knew that the medication she’d been giving the old man would put him to sleep pretty easily, but she was certain that he had an insane ability to not awake for anything. She pushed the thought of what the old man would do if there was a fire out of her mind, and focused on the one whom had summoned her. ”Yes, Mr. Griffiths, what can I do for you?” she asked, polite enough despite her general hesitation towards men. ”Your stitches didn’t come apart, did they?”

word count: 618 - tagged: jacob - notes: nom nom nom <3 outfit: lavender scrubs

[jacob]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,300] BETH AS CELINA | (: Jake hummed quietly to himself, picking at his fingernails, as he waited for the nurse to arrive. Taylor Swift was probably not the most normal artist for a male such as Jake to hum to himself, but hey, he was not a normal guy, and he didn't pretend like he was, either. Wasn't worth it, really, in his own personal opinion. Sooner or later everyone would realize how ridiculous he was, and his "normal" cover would be blown anyway. He didn't have to wait for very long before the nurse appeared in the doorway, and he smiled brightly as he noticed her, stopping his humming immediately. What was her name again? He honestly couldn't remember. She was prettier than he remembered, too. He must have been more drugged up than he thought he was to miss a beauty like that. But her name, it had started with an s, or a c, he was pretty sure. He had been right about to go into surgery when he'd learned it, after all, he couldn't be expected to remember everything, could he? "Jake. It's Jake. " He corrected her cheerfully. Mr. Griffiths just sounded strange. He was used to Detective, or Officer, by now. But he always preferred Jake. It sounded a lot less formal, formalities were never something that Jacob was comfortable with. "What's your name again?" He asked with another smile, making a mental note to remember it this time. At her question, Jake only smiled and shook his head. "Not that I know of." Though how someone could miss their stitches coming apart was beyond him. "Actually, I just couldn't sleep. You're not busy, are ya?" He asked, his eyebrows knitting together worridly. The last thing he wanted was to keep her busy when she had so many other things to take care of or something. But he was bored out of his mind, and he couldn't find anything to do. Jake had serious ADD, he was easily distracted. being trapped in here was the worst thing imaginable for him. He blinked innocently as he looked at her, wondering if she would really stay and have a chat with him or if she'd have something to do and run off and leave him to die. Though in a hospital, that was less likely to happen.. Well, was he morbid tonight or what? "How long have you been working here?" He asked suddenly, tilting his head to the side. He didn't remember ever seeing her before, and he was a very curious guy. Not that he was a common person to find at the hospital anyway. But still, he thought that he knew basically the majority of the nurses there, he was pretty sure that he would have recognized or remembered her.

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[celina]

Celina looked at the patient expectantly, though she had to note that he didn’t appear to be in any physical discomfort. Maybe he just needed to go to the bathroom but didn’t know if he was allowed to be moving about? Sometimes people with stitches would just turn the wrong way and then everything would turn to shit and there’d be blood for her to clean up. But it wasn’t as if he would have a scar going across his entire stomach or anything dramatic like that. Hell, the man in the bed beside him had a more impressive battle scar than the young man did.

However, instead of just checking herself, she merely waited for Mr. Griffiths to say what he wanted. Besides being called Jake. It wasn’t unusual for patients to request being called by their first name. In fact, Celina noted that more often than not, patients just preferred to be called by their first name. She usually complied but always remembered to stick to formalities when first working with a patient. The last thing she needed was to call them by their first name without permission and then get a complaint sent to her nurse manager. She was still relatively new to the floor and didn’t want her job put in jeopardy because of a silly mistake.

Oh my, she thought to herself. He wasn’t a rather cheerful lad, wasn’t he? She didn’t know how to deal with that. ”Celina,” she replied with a small nod. Why he wanted to know, she didn’t know, but she supposed that it would be good to know in case he had a complaint or something and needed to tattle on her. But she prided herself on being a brilliant nurse, so she pushed that thought to the back of her mind. Why was he smiling at her? She hadn’t remembered giving him drugs that would make him loopy. Strange boy.

”Alright, but keep in mind not to move around too much or do anything strenuous, even when you get home,” she cautioned, still in nurse mode. Alright, he couldn’t sleep; that was a common enough problem. Some people had a hard time sleeping in an unfamiliar, if not a little scary, place. ”No, I’m not particularly busy. I was just filling out some paperwork. Would you like like me to get you something to help you sleep?” she offered. The pain meds they did have him on weren’t strong and anything she gave him wouldn’t interfere with their job.

Celina stood awkwardly at the end of his bed, one hand on the footboard, the other on her hip. Absentmindedly she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear before replacing her hand on said hip, and tilted her head to the side slightly. What an odd question. ”I’ve been working here since July, though I’ve only been in this unit for a few months. I was in the birthing area before,” she explained, deciding that it was an okay question that she didn’t feel too uncomfortable asking. ”Why do you ask?” she questioned in return.

word count: 528 - tagged: jacob - notes: nom nom nom <3 outfit: lavender scrubs

[jacob]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,300] BETH AS CELINA | (: Celina. That was it. He remembered now. "Celina. That's a pretty name." He said with another genuine smile. She looked like she couldn't quite figure out what was going on, and for that, he was slightly confused himself. It wasn't like he had some kind of hidden agenda or anything, he just wanted a nice, honest conversation with a human being, was all, was that so hard to believe or too much to ask for? He nodded as she told him not to do anything that could make his stitches again, he'd heard this all before from the doctor, but he wasn't going to interrupt or anything, that would be rude. And Jake was rarely rude, if ever. "Yes ma'am." Jake replied simply, with a grin, as he listened to her response. "No, no, you don't have to do that." He shook his head. "Just wanting a little conversation.. if that's okay with you, that is." He raised his shoulders slightly in a small shrug before dropping them and continuing to look at her as she explained herself. The birthing area. Well, that was why he hadn't seen her, after all, he didn't know nothing 'bout birthin' no babies. He had no reason to visit the birthing area. He raised his eyebrows and looked back up at her as she asked why he wanted to know, and his face relaxed into a soft, friendly smile again. "I don't know. Just curious, I guess. Do you prefer this unit or the birthing one?" Because honestly, he couldn't see how helping give birth to babies could be very fun. Maybe fulfilling, helping bringing a life into the world or whatever, but it just sounded messy to him. Then again, so did just being a nurse in general. Jake would not last for long in the nursing world. He didn't have enough of an attention span, and he probably talked too much for their liking. He did seem to annoy a lot of people because of how much he talked up and his inability to discern when he needed to shut up. Plus, he did tend to use the wrong words a lot of the time, he would say one thing and mean another and he got tongue tied and made a fool of himself far too often, especially in front of pretty women such as Celina herself. So far, so good, though, he hadn't seemed to have offended or insulted her or anything quite yet. Weirded her out, apparently, he was used to that reaction, though, he was a burly six foot six and acted like a teddy bear the majority of the time, people were usually originally intimidated, for whatever reason. Though he was laying in a hospital bed, he didn't know if she even knew how tall he was, he just weirded her out with his random questions. Which also happened a lot more than he'd like to say. Jake was just a naturally friendly, sweet, social guy. He liked people. Maybe they didn't always like him back, but he did, he honestly just liked people, he didn't think he'd last long as a hermit, really. He didn't see a problem in striking up a conversation with a random stranger. He didn't ever really stop to wonder if they saw a problem in it.

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[celina]

She blinked. Was that a compliment? If it was, that was rather weird. It wasn’t like she picked out her name. What parent went around not calling their kid anything until the child was old enough to pick a name for themselves? Even Celina’s parents, as terrible and monstrous as they were, gave her a name. But she probably was thinking too much about it. In the end, she opted to give him the normal response, since it was all she could think of. ”Thank you,” she said and forced the corners of her mouth to go up in the automatic smile she had reserved for patients. She was supposed to be nice to them and that included smiling, so she did. No need to get fired for being grumpy.

Celina paused and bit her lower lip slightly. He wanted conversation. Damn, now she wished she hadn’t asked him and instead just given him something to make him sleep. She was terrible at making small talk. She shifted uncomfortably, but supposed that she really didn’t have a good reason to say no. ”Uhm...yeah, sure,” she said. Celina realised then that it’d be weird to stay standing at the end of the bed and moved to sit in the chair by the window beside the patient’s bed. For a minute Celina looked around the room to avoid looking at Jake, but she forced herself to pay attention to him so that she couldn’t be perceived as rude.

”Haven’t you ever heard that curiosity killed the cat?” she asked, attempting to make a joke. Celina didn’t do that often and was therefore horrible at it. But it was late, he was on pain meds, maybe he might not realise her lameness. ”Good question,” she said and had to think about it. ”I guess I like this one more. I’m not a huge fan of babies or emotional new parents,” she said with a shrug. Realising it probably sounded horrible without any explanation, she frowned slightly. ”It’s just very overwhelming and unpredictable. There’s a bit more stability on this floor. Plus, assisting in births is very...messy,” she nodded. There, that made her sound like more of a heartless wench.

She eyed the door for a moment, making sure it was open like she had left it. The last thing she wanted was to be left in a closed room with a man alone. The idea made her sick to her stomach. How did one make small talk again? She searched through her mind to try and remember. Ask easy questions, yes that usually worked. ”What about you, Mr-- er, Jake? What do you do for a living?” she asked. There, that was a fairly good questions because people tended to ramble on about their occupation, and then she would’t have to speak for quite some time. Oh yes, the joys of asking questions.

word count: 496 - tagged: jacob - notes: nom nom nom <3 outfit: lavender scrubs

[jacob]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,300] BETH AS CELINA | (: Jake had to stop himself from laughing as she looked like she couldn't figure out what to do with his compliment. He did, however, raise his eyebrows and smile softly in surprise. Had he said something other than what he meant to? He did seem to do that a lot. Pain medication probably was not helping his conversational problems. He could have said something entirely horrible and he wouldn't even know it. He was almost positive he had said she had a pretty name, though. It worried him slightly that he couldn't positively identify whether or not those had been his actual words. But then she thanked him, so he guessed that it had been okay after all. He did notice that she seemed hesitant about having a conversation with him, and he was slightly bewildered when she actually agreed to it. "I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to or anything." He babbled, throwing his arm carelessly to the side and shrugging. "I just .. thought it would be nice." She looked slightly afraid, if you asked Jake, but he didn't know why she would be afraid. He was in a hospital bed, after all. He grinned as she made a joke, and chuckled a little. "I have heard that, actually. Never seemed to phase me. I am rather afraid that is going to be the end of me, however." He nodded slowly, with a small yawn and another smile as he listened to her reasoning. He almost laughed again as she paused and realized that her assessment had sounded rather harsh about babies. Jake, personally, loved babies. He thought they were absolutely adorable. Of course, he could deal without the crying and the poop, but otherwise, he loved them. "Well, I can imagine.." he replied simply, grinning. Finally, he had found someone just as bad with words as he was! Though Jake didn't really quite know how being bad with words was a good thing. It was still nice to know. His eyebrows raised and he looked back up at her when she asked him what his job was. "I'm a homicide detective." He gave her a little half-smile. He hadn't been a homicide detective for very long, and it still felt sort of weird to say so. Especially as he laid in the hospital bed for something as lame as getting his appendix out. "One of Capeside's finest." He spread his arms out wide proudly and then let them drop pathetically to his sides. "Well, not really, but it sounds cool enough when you announce it like that, anyway." Though the victims weren't really something you got used to, and they didn't make much for bedside manner, either.

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[celina]

She had the urge to stab him with a sedative. But that would mean she wouldn’t have even made it through her first year of nursing without getting in trouble for mistreating a patient. And she didn’t want to do that, no matter how much men made her uncomfortable. Her career choice was somewhat unorthodox since she didn’t really like being in social situations, but she didn’t want people to hurt like how she hurt when she was younger. She knew it wasn’t the same type of pain, but she didn’t think she could mentally be able to handle being a therapist or counsellor. No, she was much better and changing bandaids and hanging IVs. Celina watched the man babble and wondered how she was supposed to respond. She shrugged and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. ”What did you want to talk about?” she asked. She was terrible at making conversation, most likely because she rarely found herself involved in them, and in her mind a couple of people needed a topic to start the conversation. Was that not how it worked?

So either he had an equally terrible sense of humour or the meds made him think anything was funny. Either way, she was glad she was doing her job in distracting him. Maybe he would get bored of her and just fall asleep. ”Hey, don’t think like that,” she said then paused, ”maybe I’m secretly spitting in your stitches so you’ll get some nasty infection that kills you.” Though she spoke flatly, she was joking; she’d been told in the past she needed to emote more, but she doubted that would ever happen. Celina nodded and looked around the room. She’d been in a hospital bed a few times in her life. Terrible memories, really. ”Here I still deal with messes but most of the time I can at least communicate with the person that needs help,” she shrugged. ”Although sometimes there’s overflow and we get some of the patients from the psych ward, and then I might as well be talking to a wall. A wall that bites.”

She realised she was probably saying more than her patient cared to listen. Her cheeks reddened slightly and she shut up. Did he already regret asking her to have a conversation with him? Probably. She watched his limbs drop to his bed and she found herself smiling slightly. ”Isn’t that a little...depressing?” she asked. Sure, she’d dealt with a few patients who had died, but it didn’t mean she really enjoyed it. She grinned-- something that felt weird for her to do-- and tried to picture him in a police uniform. Did homicide detectives wear police uniforms? ”What made you want to do that?” she asked, genuinely curious despite her slight discomfort.

word count: 481 - tagged: jacob - notes: nom nom nom <3 outfit: lavender scrubs

[jacob]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,300] BETH AS CELINA | SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG! Jacob paused and squinted at her question. Well, he hadn't really thought that far. What did he want to talk about? Normally he could find something, anything random to talk about, but now, he wasn't really sure. Maybe he was just tired. What could he possibly have in common to talk to with her? What did he even ever do besides work, eat, and watch tv? Slowly, he smiled. "Well.. now that you bring it up.. I don't know." He said honestly, shaking his head. "Didn't really think that through as well as I'd thought." He chuckled. Keeping conversation really wasn't his strong point, he liked to pretend he knew what he was talking about but most of the time he just made crap up as he went along. Of course, a lot of people thought that he was really annoying for that, but, whatever. He was Celina's patient, after all. Even though he didn't really mind whether or not she told him he was annoying her, he doubted she would. She didn't seem like the kind of person who'd tell him off, though. Mostly because she probably wasn't allowed to. But still. He only chuckled again as she told him that she was trying to kill him. "Eww." he wrinkled his nose. "Do you regularly spit on your patients, or am I just special?" He smiled yet again. Jake didn't keep his emotions in check very well, not as well as this young woman seemed to be doing. The look on her face was completely dead serious and she didn't seem to struggle with hiding a smile at all. Jake never could do that. Jake nodded slowly and watched her as she talked, quite enjoying her little ranting. The fact that she was really talking was enough for him. He raised his eyebrows again as she talked about the psych ward patients. "Bites? That doesn't sound too pleasant." He grinned as she blushed, not quite sure why she would be blushing in the first place, but it was cute on her nonetheless. He shrugged a little as she asked if his job was depressing. "Yeah, it is." He said honestly, quietly. "But someone's gotta do it. Right?" He looked back up at her. "I don't know, really. Quest for justice, I guess. I just always felt like I should help people. Does that sound as lame to you as it did to me?" He chuckled. "I mean, I don't have any horrible sob story about what got me into the criminal justice system or whatever, I just felt like it was what I needed to be doing." There was a pause, and he tilted his head to the side slightly. "What about you? What made you decide to be a nurse?" He turned the question on her now, never being one too good with words, he felt like it was best the majority of the time to make the other person talk until they found something that they'd both like to talk about instead of just one talking and the other one standing there bored out of their mind.

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[celina]

She was terrible at making conversation, plain and simple. Sometimes that was perfectly alright with her patients who were in too much pain to give a crap about making small talk. Sometimes the old ladies would just ramble on and all she had to do was nod and smile every now and again and they were perfectly happy. But then she got people, not unlike Jacob, who wanted to have an actual conversation with her because they were so damn bored. She felt bad that they were stuck here, and even worse that their boredom reached a level where they had to resort to talking to her. That was just....unfortunate.

”Isn’t that just a tad problematic?” she asked, raising a red eyebrow. She wasn’t one known for engaging conversations. ”Maybe you should get some of those conversation queue cards, you know the ones that have different questions or topics that people take on dates and stuff.” Or did they actually do that? She didn’t know. She was twenty-one and had never been on a date before, though it wasn’t for the lack of trying on the part of men. She merely rejected what few offers she got. Thankfully once guys seemed to realise she was standoffish, they generally left her alone. Unlike this man. While he wasn’t pestering her for a date, he was still bothering her for a conversation.

It wasn’t a bad type of bothering, she guessed, even if she was uncomfortable. She’d been far more uncomfortable in other situations, so this was the sort of level of discomfort she was used to. And, though she didn’t even want to admit it to herself, there was a certain...dare she think ‘charm’ to this man that she couldn’t quite place. He needed to stop that. Celina wasn’t supposed to enjoy the time spent around men.

Celina shrugged and looked at him straight on, not fearing eye contact despite her dislike of social interactions. ”Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said. Ha, mysterious. She could be mysterious-- in fact, that was one of the things she was good at. ”If it pleases you, I guess you could be that one special person in my life--” she paused, and cracked a small smirk, ”-- that I decide to kill in the most odd way possible.” The funny thing was, despite her extreme anti-social tendencies and dislike for the general population, she would never want to intentionally-- or even unintentionally-- hurt someone. She knew what it was like to be a victim of abuse and she could tell you first hand that it wasn’t fun.

”It’s not so bad if they’re not wearing their dentures,” she shrugged. ”Just...slimy.” Yeah, that wasn’t pleasant and unfortunately it had happened to her more than once. She watched the man as he talked about his job, which was pretty much the opposite of hers. Celina shrugged her thin shoulders and absentmindedly looked around the room. ”Not really. I mean, if no one tried to help others, the world would descend into chaos,” she said. Of course, she helped people in her job, but she didn’t really help them outside of it. She was a fend for herself type of girl, and only ever looked out for number one. She didn’t really have an interest in the struggles of others.

She looked back at Jacob when he asked her a question and frowned slightly. He wasn’t supposed to do that. He was supposed to continue on talking so she didn’t have to say anything. ”I hate math but didn’t want to be a stripper?” she said, almost as if it were a question. She wasn’t going to tell him the real reason she wanted to be a nurse; that was personal and personal things were meant to be kept to her own mind. Now she had to try and turn it back to him so that she didn’t have to talk more. Yes, she had a master plan. ”What’s the weirdest murder you’ve ever investigated?” She asked, proud of her stealthy conversation diversion tactics.

word count: 701 - tagged: jacob - notes: nom nom nom <3 outfit: lavender scrubs

[jacob]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,300] BETH AS CELINA | OMG THIS TOOK SO LONG I'M SO SORRY Jacob's own eyebrows raised as she began speaking, and he chuckled. "Conversation queue cards?" He asked, nodding slowly. "I probably need some of those.." If they existed. He'd never actually heard of that before. But it was probably just him, he didn't know. He just wanted a conversation, any conversation, really. He wasn't picky. With people skills like his, he was lucky to get someone to talk to him at all without his annoying them until they just left. He did do that more than he'd like to admit, after all. He knew exactly how annoying he was, and mostly he tried to not be so obnoxious, but it was all on accident to be quite honest. He was just never really the best with words. Actually, Jake seemed to screw everything up by just opening his mouth, not just trying to have a little conversation, so he didn't really know quite what was wrong with him. But oh well. Most people still seemed to like him all right. He assumed it just meant that it was evident he wasn't meaning to bother them. Celina didn't seem too annoyed with him quite yet, which he was quite thankful for. She didn't seem to really want to have a conversation with him, but it was late, after all. Or maybe she just had a funny way of showing interest. A really funny way, if that was the thing. He laughed again as she decided to withhold such information from him, spitting on her patients, and he grinned crookedly- a bit of a habit for him. "Well, I do feel a little more special now. Of course, my partner will just have to investigate my death, and she might find incriminating evidence against you.. though, with my luck, she might just thank you and be on her merry way." Jake continued on second thought, chuckling again. Okay, so he was pretty sure she wouldn't do that. But he'd be dead, it wouldn't really matter to him then anyway. This really wasn't a normal conversation. But it amused him plenty, and he'd basically take what he could get. "Ewww." Jake scrunched his nose up in disgust and made a face as though he'd just eaten a lemon as he imagined being bitten by someone without teeth. Though with teeth sounded more painful, without just sounded grosser, for whatever reason to him. He nodded absentmindedly as she sort of agreed with him, and he stared off in silence for a moment. Most people of the precinct had some kind of reason like their father did it before them or they witnessed something young that they had vowed to stop or something. The worst thing that ever happened to Jake was when his sister was attacked and Jake nearly beat the perpetrator to death. But that was a very long time ago, and though it wasn't the sole reason, he did feel like he needed to make up for that. He wasn't proud of his violence issues, but he felt it was necessary to make up for them. But that didn't make for lovely pillow talk. Jake grinned again as she gave him a terribly vague reason of becoming a nurse. "I'm sure you'd make a perfectly adequate stripper.." He said before he thought, and then he shut his mouth promptly, his eyes growing wide. "I mean. No. That wasn't.. what I meant. I'm sorry.." He squeezed his eyes. Maybe he was making a big deal out of nothing, but that certainly was not what he had wanted to say. He was always raised to be respectful to women.. that was so not what was supposed to happen there. Now he just felt stupid. "The weirdest murder?" He repeated, furrowing his eyebrows. "Well, there aren't a lot of really interesting murders in Capeside. But actually, once, someone hung their boyfriend upside down and left him there because he broke up with her and he choked on his own vomit. That was pretty gross. Even though it was accidental." He pulled the corners of his mouth down in an interesting expression.

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[celina]

Oh crap, she just said something horribly strange that probably only existed in really bad movies. And Celina had seen her fair share of really bad movies. After all, when she wasn’t at work she spent most of her time alone. She had to do something with her time on rainy days when her apartment was already clean. ”Or get a strange hat,” she nodded, not quite sure what she was saying anymore. ”Strange so that people ask why you’re wearing it, and then that will start a conversation.” The more she tried to reason it, the more stupid she realised it sounded, and the more awkward she felt. Her cheeks reddened in spite of herself-- the curse of being a redhead-- and she had to stop herself from drugging him with loopy meds so that he wouldn’t remember this whole conversation in which she was making a complete fool of herself.

Well, she got him to laugh-- that was a good thing, right? Or perhaps not; not if he was laughing at her. She hated not being able to tell which was which. ”Who knows? Maybe she was the one that begged your appendix to explode so you’d be off her back for a few days,” Celina said without much expression in her usual tone, though she was joking. ”Of course, if I were her and wanted you out of commission, I’d just shoot you.” That part wasn’t a joke. She wouldn’t actually shoot him, mind you, but she just thought it was a much more efficient way of getting someone to stop bothering you.

She smiled, though she wasn’t used to it, and even let out a small laugh. ”Yeah, getting bitten by old people without teeth certainly isn’t the high light of my job, but there’s worse things with which I could be dealing.” Should she make a joke? Why not try? ”Like, for example, you.” Oh, wait, no, that just sounded mean. Shit. She shifted in her seat and briefly looked over at the other patient in the room who was out like a light. Why could the man who was talking just nod off to sleep? Because that would mean life was too easy, and if there was one thing she knew, it was that life was very, very difficult.

But then she heard his next comment and immediately stopped feeling bad. Both her eyebrows rose and she stared at him in slight surprise. ”Uhm...” she mumbled, trying to think of what to say to that. Truth be told, no one had ever told her whether or not they thought she would make a good or bad stripper. It wasn’t something that came up in conversation that often, was it? She watched him as he tried to make up for what he said, then she tilted her head to the side ever slightly and narrowed her eyes. ”So you wouldn’t like to see me naked?” she questioned. Okay, so maybe she was a terrible person who took amusement in seeing people in discomfort. Not in physical discomfort. But there was a tiny, secret part of her that took humour in messing with people.

Celina tried to imagine the sheer strength that it must had taken the girl to hang her boyfriend from a tree. ”That’s actually pretty impressive, if you think about it,” she said. Lord, she really was a terrible person, wasn’t she? Oh well. Celina left out the part where her father basically murdered her mother by ‘accident’, which caused her brother to murder her father. She never told anyone that. And she certainly wasn’t about to tell this perfect stranger that, despite the fact that she’d seen him almost naked. She was a nurse. It was a common part of her job. It was just all the more weird when she had to talk to her patients like they were actual people. She was much better at helping when she could just think of them as injuries and illnesses. There was a slight silence as she tried to find something to say. She just wanted some coffee to keep her going until she could go home. ”You sure you don’t want something to help you sleep? They’ve got some pretty strong stuff that’ll knock you out pretty quickly,” she offered again.

word count: 743 - tagged: jacob - notes: nom nom nom <3 outfit: lavender scrubs