Kindred Spirits

Who: Chance and Leija
When: late afternoon
Where: Park Cemetery

Apparently the world was ending. That was the word on the news, at least, from fringe groups here and there. Of course, fringe groups here and there had always been saying that the world was going to end. Granted, there hadn't been a seemingly-permanent dissolution of the veil between the living and the dead before, but still. But given everything else ... Leija wasn't sure. She really wasn't. And that was a depressing-as-hell kind of thought. She'd spent listless time in the house that day, just mentally poking and prodding at an ache in her chest. There was nobody. She'd completely hurt and alienated Thom. Caleb -- understandably -- didn't want to have much to do with her. She didn't talk to Peyton much. Rose was gone, possibly not to ever come back. And now Nate, Nate was gone too. Dylan had his own problems, and she'd only met Porter the once. Maybe she just wasn't meant to have people. Friends or lovers. It would make sense, given what she was, and she seemed amazingly bad at it. But it still hurt, more than she ever thought it would. And it was really hard to stop feeling sorry for yourself when there was nobody left to really talk to about anything.

So she'd gone out walking, once it started to snow. Just a slow sort of sidewalk-staring wander. It was cold, but she didn't care. She ended up at Park Cemetery. It was as good a place as any to sit, so she did that, on a bench. Might as well hang out with the dead, they were her business. Quietly, she started to hum, just something slow and mournful, to keep her throat occupied and ward off crying.

Chance had already been in the cemetery, as weird as it may have been. He hadn't wanted to go home after leaving that girl, May, but he found even skateboarding was sapping up way too much of his energy. He knew that feeling, when even walking felt like a goddamn chore, and he didn't like it. He found himself sitting on his deck, up against one of the larger headstones and just... staring. Watching as the occasional ghost floated by. One actually stopped and greeted him, but Chance hadn't replied, looking through the ghostly thing at the headstones beyond it. And then he was alone again, which was just fine with him. It wasn't like he had anyone. Jordan and Devon were gone. Hannah was gone, and Jezebelle. Kaysen was really the only person he could talk to, or who would be willing to talk to him, and that was all fucked up too. Besides, he didn't really want to pour his misery down on other people, so it was probably for the best.

Things were quiet around him for awhile, which relaxed Chance. At least until he heard humming. He tensed and ticked his gaze to the side, almost waiting for another ghost to pop around. But he didn't see anything. And the humming continued. More alert now, Chance got up from his deck and looked over the top of the headstone. There was a redheaded chick sitting on a bench with her back to him. And she looked alive enough. It took him a second before he realized it was the girl who was stuck in the In Between with Kaysen. Thom's girl. Ex-girl. Whatever. And she was sitting alone, in a cemetery full of ghosts, seen or unseen.

He debated quickly, thinking he could just grab his deck and leave without her even knowing. But she was humming something that sounded depressing as fuck and well, misery loved company, right? Chance stood and picked up his skateboard before walking away from the headstones to the path where the bench was. He walked around from behind the bench, hoping he wouldn't scare her. "You trying to draw the ghosts to you with that?" Chance asked, referring to her humming though he knew she had no way of knowing that.

Leija was startled, seeing as how her brain was about a million miles away at the moment, and everything had been so quiet ... she jumped, head jerking around to look at Chance. Whom she didn't recognize for a moment, in all honesty. Once it sank in, her expression softened, first into vague confusion, and then into blankness again. It was Kaysen's boyfriend. Who probably just hated her on principle, even though she was still grateful for him getting them the fuck out of the In Between. "Hi," she said after a beat, glancing around again, sincerely hoping the girl wasn't with him. "Um ... no, just ... sitting." And she sounded retarded now, excellent. She linked her fingers in her lap and looked down at them, not sure how to take his sudden presence.

"And humming," he pointed out before shifting a bit awkwardly. "I was just... sitting back there. Heard you." Chance glanced around at the dreary place, wondering why she would be there. It made sense for him, since he was more or less like them... only not. "Didn't mean to scare you," Chance said a bit belatedly, since he had startled her despite his best efforts not too. "Did you come here alone?" He didn't know if she was waiting on someone, or visiting someone... none of his business either but he didn't want to stick around if she was.

She shrugged one shoulder at his quasi-apology, not really caring. She just hadn't been mentally prepared really to deal with other people. Not at the moment. She just wanted to sit and rub salt in her own mental wounds by remembering every soft and tender touch and word and moment that she would probably never have again, and likely didn't deserve in the first place. "Yeah," she answered, glancing back up at him. "I just felt like walking. ... you?" Is Kaysen around? was the unvoiced question there. Because if she was, Leija would most definitely be moving along.

"I'm alone. Didn't really feel like doing anything... but I didn't want to stay inside so I'm here doing nothing instead." In a cemetery, which he guessed could be creepy, but he figured it would be one of the places people would avoid. Like with May, he had to push his hood back off his head, since her voice was a bit muffled otherwise. Chance shifted on his feet, not really wanting to ask, but figuring he should since she looked as miserable as he felt. "Everything okay? I mean, it's not the best place to end up if you were just out for some fresh air... or something." Wow, he was really bad at human communication with people at times. No wonder he had no friends.

If she thought it was creepy, it didn't show. Since she didn't honestly really think much of it. She was there in the cemetery herself, so who was she to judge? Leija almost laughed at his question. Was everything okay. Holy hell. She looked down at her hands and smiled a touch instead, though there wasn't anything really pleasant in it. She scooted over to one side a little bit to make room if he wanted to sit down. Since she'd interrupted his doing nothing and all. "No, everything pretty much is awful, but ... that's kind of the way of things, isn't it?" she asked rhetorically, glancing up at him again. "Sit if you want. I could ask you the same thing."

Chance glanced at the empty space on the bench and hesitated before finally sitting down. For some reason he half expected Harkin to show up and kick his ass or something for being that close to her, but then he remembered they weren't together anymore. Still felt weird. He set his skateboard down in front of him and set one foot on it to keep it from rolling away. His hands slipped firmly into the pockets of his sweatshirt. "I guess I could just use your answer for my own. Everything's shit, but like you said, that's the way of things." Chance lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug. "Nothing new, I guess. " He looked over at her. "Sorry things are awful for you. I'd ask if you wanna talk about it, but if you're feeling the same way I am, you probably don't."

Leija was looking at his profile before he looked back at her, and then her eyes ticked away again. It was hard not to think about Thom with Chance sitting right there next to her. She wondered in a vague way if she would ever stop feeling so awful about him. It was kind of doubtful, but she had no idea how to make it better. If she even should. Probably not. "There's just ... nothing to say that's not whining," she said quietly, gaze drifting over the headstones around them. "Thanks though, sorry it's all shit for you too." She glanced over briefly.

"I think it's only whining if you actually whine," Chance remarked. "Unless your reasons for being upset are totally insignificant, then I don't think it's whining." He sunk down the bench just a little, moving his foot back and forth to roll his skateboard. He stopped after a moment, realizing the sound could get annoying in such a quiet place. "Don't apologize... not your fault. Just... shit never works out. Every time you think it will? It doesn't. It's just one big pile of steaming disappointment and fuckery. Even worse when you can't fix it and you want to." Chance paused and smiled faintly. "Guess it does sound like whining, doesn't it?"

She did laugh at that, a sort of low soft chuckle. "No, it more sounds absolutely familiar," she said, giving him a small, wry smile back. "It's even worse when you have a tendency to fuck everything up and people don't even want you to bother trying to fix it." Not that they were playing Who's Shit Was Worse or anything, the personal failure was just salt in all the wounds. For her, at least. She idly ran her fingers over the rough, freezing surface of the concrete bench below them. "Anything you wanna go into more detail about?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow at him, even though he'd more or less already said he didn't want to talk about it. Sometimes people just said that.

"God, yeah, I hear you on that," Chance said with a humorless smile. "Sucks even more when you want to fix it but you don't know how. So it's like a double failure... you lose people and you can't even try to win 'em back because you're so fucked up that nothing you say or do..." Chance trailed off before grimacing. "I don't mean you... just you in general. Actually by you, I mean me." He didn't really want to go into more detail because the details were really fucked up and nothing you were going to find other normal teenagers going through. My girlfriend wants to throw the only family I have left in jail. Yeah. "It's complicated," he said with apologetic look in her direction. "What about you? Family stuff? Friends?"

Leija had to give a faint smile at the 'by you I mean me' thing, 'cause she'd more or less already figured that. "Isn't it always complicated?" she asked rhetorically, then paused to nibble on her bottom lip as she considered the counter-question. "I think ... two really good -- if completely different -- people were in my life one right after the other, and I pretty much did the best job possible fucking things up with both of them beyond any remote hope of repair." That was a summary, wasn't it? "And now I just ... " Leija trailed off and shrugged, swallowing thickly and smiling just a little to try and cover it up. "Now I just don't know what to do, and really high places are looking more and more appealing, you know?" It was slightly blurted, and she hadn't really meant to say it. Those were thoughts best not voiced. Hopefully he'd let it go as a turn of phrase.

He knew what she was saying, but he didn't let any reaction flicker across his face. He knew that feeling all too well. "Yeah, I know what you mean about the high places." Chance shifted on the bench and moved his gaze from her face to the headstones around them. "There's really no other feeling worse than desolation, right? At that point, getting out of it any way you can looks like a really good option. Did you really fuck everything up all on your own?" She didn't seem like the type to him, but then again, he didn't really know her. "I've always found when relationships get fucked, there's not always one person to blame." Except in his case that was true. He fucked up... all the time. That was why he was in this misery.

It took her a second to answer. Desolation. That was the perfect word for it, he'd summed it right up. She was desolate and alone, and it was completely her own fault. "It was me," she said very quietly, but utterly sure of that. Even though Caleb had kind of said it wasn't ... if she'd just ... done things differently. Been right, then it would all be okay. But she hadn't been, and she'd hurt him in the process, and she knew she'd hurt Thom, and she didn't deserve for anything to go right now. If she ever did. "I'm surprised you didn't hear," Leija added in a murmur, looking out at the stones herself.

Chance was curious as to what she could have possibly done to fuck up two relationships beyond repair... but it wasn't really his business and she didn't know him well enough to open up about something like that. He knew she was feeling miserable though. Could see it in the lines of her face, and in her eyes. He'd seen that look in his own mirror way too many times. Even though he didn't want to care, he felt bad for her. Probably because he could relate, and he knew how fucking horrible and hard it could be sometimes. "Hear what?" he asked, thinking if it was known around school or something, she might end up telling him anyway. He'd been too wrapped up in his own issues to think about anyone else's.

Either he was being nice, Thom hadn't talked about it much, or Chance didn't listen to gossip too closely. Or some combination of all of the above. "That I dumped Thom -- or he dumped me, I dunno what he told people -- and then ran off to elope with Caleb Lockwood," she said, still feeling at least slightly annoyed by that last one. "The second part of which is completely untrue, I was out of state because my aunt was dying. But y'know ... with Kaysen and all, I just ... I dunno, nevermind." The world didn't revolve around her or anything, she probably needed to shut up. "The point pretty much just is that I have an innate talent for fucking up miserably, and I think I'm just gonna go live in the mountains or something."

"Oh." He thought he had heard something about that, but he didn't really listen to shit like that. He didn't know or care about Caleb Lockwood, and the only thing he had in common with Thom was Kaysen. "Kaysen doesn't talk about Thom to me much," he admitted. "She's been pissed at him for awhile anyway for dating Chrissy, so... but I guess I don't get how rumors like that are your fault. Unless you did elope with this guy or something, which I somehow doubt." His smile was wry, but faint. "Be careful in the mountains, if you do end up going. It rains a lot there, I hear. So is that who you fucked things up with? Harkin and the other guy?"

"Yeah," she said, because it was true, but ... it wasn't, at the same time. Not just summarized like that. Because it hadn't just been like 'oops' fucked up. And they weren't just guys. It was all so ... consuming and big, and she didn't even know how to begin to explain what it all meant. She didn't think she could. More importantly, she wasn't sure she wanted to. Talking about it took away from it somehow, and she suddenly really didn't want to anymore. Her cheeks flushed a little and she re-tucked the hair around her ear under her hat. "I didn't ... I didn't used to really have people. At all. And now ... I guess I know what I'm missing, is all," she said by way of lame explanation.

"They're not the only two people in the world," Chance pointed out, wishing he could remember that for himself. He just felt like everyone he did have, he lost. "I mean, relationships come and go and shit. Life doesn't always work out the way you want it to and it fucking sucks, especially when you can't find anyone else in the world to give a shit about you. Er, which I guess kind of contradicts the whole there's more than two people in the world thing." He sighed and wondered why he was even trying to understand it, or talk about it. Chance pulled his hands from his pockets to rub them over his face before he looked at her. "Can't let it completely bury you, though. Once you're on that downward spiral, it's hard to stop climb back up."

It wasn't life not working out, though. It was her not working out. She had a talent for ruining things, and even if Nate had stayed, she probably would've ruined that too. People did give a shit until they got down into her core and saw how fucked up she was, and she ended up hurting them. She continued not looking at Chance, deciding it was best not to even try to explain that. "Yeah," she murmured noncommittally. Really, she should shut up. It was selfish of her to even talk about and try to drag yet another person into. It was her problem, she was the problem, and she didn't deserve any sympathy. She just ... needed to hush and fade out from everyone, that would be best. If the one person -- who wasn't blood and obligated, anyway -- she'd gotten the closest to ever couldn't handle her ... who could?

"Sorry for bringing it up," Chance said. "Probably didn't help anything. I'm probably the last person in the world to talk to about this shit. I'm no good with advice or anything... not that you asked for any." This is why he kept to himself. Why he sat by himself in cemeteries instead of calling a friend. Not that he had any. Still, he felt bad for Leija. She was surrounded by negative energy, and she looked miserable. He couldn't help her because he couldn't even help himself with this stuff. Instead, he drew the negative energy away from her, and into himself, hoping maybe it would make her feel less heavy emotionally. If not, at least he'd feel a bit stronger.

She looked over at him, feeling bad that she'd made him feel bad -- or worse, because neither of them really seemed in any kind of good mood. "No, it's okay, it's just ... like you said earlier, it's complicated, and I completely fail at making it make sense to anyone else," she said. "Even the best advice-giver probably couldn't give me much advice right now." She offered up a twitch of a half-smile. See? She couldn't even talk to a random guy who'd saved her life without doing it badly. That whole monk-life was starting to sound pretty good.

"I know how it is, believe me. People can say exactly the right thing, at the right time, and it still doesn't help. Because they don't know... they're not the ones experiencing this shit. It's nice for the occasional advice, or smile or pat on the back, but at the end of the day, you're still alone, and you still have all this stuff weighing on you. It never ends," he muttered. "And just when you think things might get better, they get worse." His smile was self deprecating. "See? I won't be becoming a counselor anytime soon."

"I don't guess either of us will," Leija said, wrinkling her nose up briefly. Because that? Just ... yes, everything he said, she knew. Which made her hurt for him, too, because one could only say those things from true experience. She almost wanted to give him a hug, but was aware just how much that wouldn't help anything. Sometimes the only hugs that could make things better came from very specific people. She was quiet for a moment before her eyes lifted back to him. "I know it doesn't always help much, but if there's anything you want to just rant about, I can listen. And I promise I won't even try to give you advice. ... I kind of feel like I owe you a lot, y'know?"

"Huh? No, you don't owe me anything." He knew she was probably talking about the whole In Between thing, but he didn't really feel comfortable hearing she owed him for that. None of them did. Especially since deep down he knew he hadn't done it for any of them but Kaysen. "I could rant about a lot of shit, but none of it would make any sense to you, you know? It would take me like... hours to get through it all. It's just... when you feel like you're stuck between a rock and a hard place... and like no matter what path you take you're going to lose, right? I mean, what else is there? I'm pretty much a freak. You saw what I did in Nevermore, so you get that. I'm a freak, not only because of that, but at school too, and in my own house. And the one person who like, accepts me for all that shit suddenly can't anymore... and I get why she can't, but it just... when you only have one good thing going for you, and it's gone, or you know it'll be gone soon enough, what else is there for you to live for?" Chance stopped abruptly and chuckled, though the sound held no amusement. "Again, I don't... it's complicated."

She bit her tongue on the instinct to tell him that he would be surprised what she understood, and just listened to the ramble. Once again, so much of it sounded so familiar. Feeling like a freak -- that was the chasm she felt between herself and the rest of the world. The someone who accepted him for all that shit suddenly couldn't anymore -- yeah, she got that too. The one only good thing being gone. "You're right, it is complicated. But I think we've been living parallel lives or something," she said with the tiniest of smirks. "Okay A? You're not a freak. You're very, very different, but so am I, and so are more people than I ever would have thought in this fuckered town. And I can say that, because I did see what you did in Nevermore. B ... I've lost that person too. Not that that makes your's any better, but ... I know where you're coming from, at least." Which, she realized, didn't help much. But from where she was sitting? Not much would. Which probably made this a bad conversation for both of them to be in. "Like you told me, more than two people in the world. So ha, now you get to eat it back," she said, nudging him with her elbow.

Chance looked at her curiously, wondering what she could possibly be, if she was as different as he was. But he wasn't sure she would tell him if he asked. Any hey, she lost someone important too! Maybe it should have made him feel better, but it didn't. He knew how much it sucked, and if it hurt her the way it hurt him? Then he really fucking felt for her. Shockingly enough. "Ha," Chance said dryly, though his lips twitched into a small smile. "I really only meant that for you... everyone else who's given me a chance is gone. Don't know how many more times I can deal with that, you know? I'm starting to think it'd be best for everyone if I just... don't know. I doubt anyone would notice if I faded into the background and disappeared or some shit." Kaysen would, but what did that mean when he wasn't even sure she would want to be with him anyway? Chance released a slow breath. "Wow... we're pretty damn depressing, aren't we? I'm really sorry you lost your person too... wish I had some great wisdom to make you feel better, but I know it'd be empty, because it'll still fucking hurt, no matter what I say."

The redheaded angel had nodded along with fading into the background and disappearing. That was about where she was too. Funny how universal some things were. And how fucking frustrating it was to not have any idea how to help herself, much less Chance. Weirdly enough, admitting that he was in the same boat with knowing whatever he said wouldn't help ... helped. A little, just in that solidarity way. At least they were really on the same page, and not just blowing smoke up each other's asses. "Back at you, y'know? I just ... if I had any idea how to help myself, I'd share, but ... if I did, I probably wouldn't be here having this conversation right now. But yeah, I'd say we win the Doomcookie Award for the day," she agreed with a very soft chuckle. Then looked up to meet his eyes, the look in her's sincere. "I hope it gets better for you," she said simply, and she absolutely meant it.

"Believe me, I don't expect any quick fix," Chance said with a dry smile. He'd gone that route once before and it hadn't worked, had it? "But thanks... me too. I mean, for you and everything." He inhaled and took a quick look around before bending over the bench to grab his skateboard. "I should go... er, if you ever wanna talk or anything... doubt I'm the best person but..." Chance shrugged as he stood. "Kind of nice to know I'm not the only one. I mean, it sucks and stuff but, yeah." Hopefully she'd get what he was saying and he wouldn't come across as a total jackass.

Leija got enough of what he was saying. What he meant, anyway, and gave him a nod and a little smile. Part of her really didn't want him to leave, but ... neither of them were really in company-mood, right? Yeah. She didn't move from where she was, re-tucking her hands into her coat pockets. "Thanks, Chance, you too," she said, aware that neither offer would probably ever be taken up. "Take care."

"Yeah. You too." Chance managed another faint smile before pushing off on his skateboard and heading toward the cemetery's exit. As much as he didn't know her, or generally care about other people at all, he hoped she felt better soon. If she felt as miserable as he did then... well, he really wouldn't wish that on anyone.