Don't wanna lose you.

Who: Jerilyn and Kavin
Where: Kavin's home
When: Evening

Jeri came out of the bathroom, towel-drying her hair with a quiet little humming sound. As much as she loved smelling like the fine dust of a bakery and a little like cinnamon and chocolate, and probably had random spots on her that she'd gotten icing or something spattered on her, she liked feeling clean more. Even if her body wash was vanilla scented. Maybe she should try something that didn't smell like food sometime.

Anyway, she paused in the hall as Furball ran past in his giant guinea pig ball, just motoring along, before she made her way to the living room and sat down so she could see Kavin. He'd been... pensive. Ever since he'd picked her up from work.

"Hey." She nudged him lightly. "Sup?"

Kavin was lost in is own little world. He'd been going over the fact that his best friend up and hauled ass without a word over and over again. Blaming himself. Being pissed at himself. Blaming Nate. Blaming Nate's dad. Being pissed off at the fucking world and mostly just being silent. The light nudge jerked him back to reality and he tensed a bit before looking over at Jeri. He hadn't paid much attention to anything she'd said or did since he picked her up and now the guilty feeling about that welled up a bit inside of him.

"Hey.." he said with a little try at a smile. It didn't look very convincing, but hey it was a try. "Nothing. Feel better now that you're all... clean?" he questioned, realizing he hadn't even noticed that she'd went off to take a bath.

"Wow. You're brooding an awful lot on the fate of nothing." Jeri said dryly, and cuddled up with him. Not in a 'give me attention' way, but just to give him some physical contact. He looked like he needed it. "Whatever it is, I'm around if you need me, a'right?"

He shifted an arm to move around the girl's shoulder. "Sorry.." he told her, and he meant it. He wasn't trying to be a dick or purposely ignoring her. He just wasn't in the mood for much of anything. The first person he really clicked with and could talk to about anything and everything had practically abandoned him. Yeah, that sucked. "Nate left town." he explained after a long bit of silence. "Sucks. Sorry if I was quiet or whatever."

"Ah, that does suck." Jeri nodded, and gave him a squeeze. Then she pursed her lips and got up. Wandering to her backpack, she started rifling through the pockets until she found her pipe and a little bag of weed. "Want to dedicate a smoke to him? You can have the entire pipeful, if it helps." Jer just wasn't one of those people who knew how to handle delicate situations like this. Kavin lost a friend, and yeah that definitely sucked, and Jeri wanted to make him feel better. She just didn't know how. Either way, she brought over the pipe and weed, and set it on the coffee table for him to pick up as he chose. "Is there any way I can help?"

Smoking weed just reminded him of Nate, so for the moment, he left that pipe on the table, not bothering to make a move to smoke it. Not yet at least. He'd probably break down and do it eventually. He shrugged and moved when she sat back down, resting his head in her lap and looking up at her. It was then that he decided the things between he and Nate were going to stay between the two of them. Nate left. No point in telling Jeri about what he'd done right? All it would accomplish would be hurting her and he wasn't about to do that. "Promise you're not going to disappear?"

Jeri stroked his hair with her fingertips gently. For some reason she was oddly proud that he put his head in her lap, like he trusted her or something. That was weird and felt kind of new. "I can't promise that. Not in this stupid city. But I can promise that if I disappear, it will won't be my free will, and I'll fight harder than hell to get back." Not that she had many reasons to come back, but Kavin was one of the rare few, and he tugged at her heart strings in a way that made her think that staying in the city wouldn't be all that bad.

He gave her a little smile. It was forced, but he wasn't in the most smiley mood to begin with, so it was about the best he could do at the moment. "Guess that's better than a no." he told her. The feel of her fingers in his hair was comforting and he let his eyes close, getting lost in the sensation for a moment. "Have you talked to your parents any since you started staying here?" he questioned. "I figured your mom would be freaking out by now..."

"She told me not to embarrass her by doing something stupid like breeding." Jeri said dryly. "And then she told me she wanted me to invite your mom over to a dinner party next week." Honestly, Jeri thought her mother looked a little relieved at the idea of Jeri not being in the house much anymore. And her father had looked at her with rheumy, bloodshot eyes and called her an ungrateful slut, but he was too involved in watching whatever was on television to get up and beat the hell out of her, so it worked out sort of.

Kavin frowned a little at that. He didn't know what it was like to have parents that just didn't care. Sometimes his mother was too caring and smothered him, but he was pretty sure he'd rather have that than have parents who just didn't give a crap. He shifted a little, rolling onto his side and pulling his legs up into a fetal like position, one arm snaking behind the girl's back and dipping beneath her shirt to lightly trail across her skin. "Well... guess that's good in a 'your parents suck' kinda way."

"I'm sure they're perfectly good people when they're not stuck with me." Jerilyn continued petting his hair, deciding she liked doing it. "And Furball likes it here, too. Thank you for putting him in his ball."

"Figured he was getting bored just chilling in his cage. Gotta get out every once in a while, right?" Kavin knew that he wouldn't want to be stuck in a damn cage all the time, so he wasn't going to force anything else to do it either. "And ya know... just because you're parents are too stupid to realize that you're not a burden, doesn't mean you need to think that anyone is 'stuck' with you. You're not something to be stuck with, Jerilyn..." He hardly ever called her by her full name, but he meant what he was saying and he wanted her to realize that.

"Hm. Thank you." She tugged a lock of his hair gently, and smiled that little crooked smile of hers. She didn't think it was true - if Kavin found someone better, Jeri was pretty sure he'd drop her in a heartbeat. And there were a lot of people better than her out there. But she didn't say it because it would just start an argument. "Shall I save the jokes about being a ball and chain, then?"

"Probably." he said with a roll of his eyes. The fingers against her back traced slow little circles on her skin. "You're not a ball and chain." he told her. "Do you really think I'd be here if I didn't want to be?"

"Well, it is your house." Jeri pointed out. "It's kind of hard for you to not be here. But thank you; you're a darling." And she leaned over to kiss him lightly on the forehead. And blinked up in time to watch Furball wandering to the kitchen, and a fascinated-looking non-clothes-throwing-ghost following him there. And Furball hit something, probably a wall, and came back. And the ghost followed him there, too. "..."

"Leave the mini-pig alone." Kavin said, not in the mood to deal with the ghost. "He's minding his own business in his ball."

The ghost ignored him and continued following Furball around. Jeri just shook her head because it was weird. But Furball didn't seem overly concerned with the situation, so she decided not to be either. She went back to stroking Kavin's hair gently. "I'm not going to disappear." She said it really softly.

"Good..." he murmured, lifting a hand to reach up and catch her cheek, pulling her down enough that he could press a little kiss against her lips. "I don't want to lose you." And he didn't. He didn't want to lose anyone else.