The reveal it was Jezzie only partially eased his nerves. They'd at least gotten through a conversation without her trying to kill him, so that was a point in her favor. But she certainly hadn't been nearly so kind to some of the other people she'd bumped into. If she hadn't knocked, if she'd just b...

A knock upon the door caused a jitter to run down Jacob's spine. A perfectly ordinary sound, heard in the last place you'd think to hear it. Nobody knocked anymore; they just barged in full-throttle. Pretty much every encounter he'd had with someone had been them barreling in on him alone or with Gr...

((Jacob Winters continued from Burning Down The House (Naive Melody) )) Everything fucking hurt. Jacob had gotten injured more than a few times in his life. Urbexing could be dangerous if you weren't careful, and Jacob often wasn't, though thankfully the worst that'd come of it was a twisted ankle. ...

Jacob waited, body tensing so bad that every muscle seemed to ache. It was all he could do to stay still, listening to Salem stumble around in the living room, knowing at any moment he would hear him trudging towards the hall. If he wasn't fast on the trigger, he'd be joining Greg. So he sat, not mo...

Jacob wanted to point and fire the gun again, wanted to ignore the searing pain in his arm as best he could. He was a second too late; Salem had already raised his own weapon. Instead, Jacob's free hand snatched the strap on Greg's flung bag, laying next to him after Salem had punted it away. Jacob ...

"... A nap?" Jacob gently bent down, picking up the bag, shaking and breathing heavily all the while. His back remained turned to Salem. "Sure..." One hand grabbed the strap, as if to hoist it over his shoulder. The other, obscured from Salem, slipped silently into the bag and go...

Jacob's heart pounded in his ears, rapid and deafening. He'd barely registered that he was being spoken to at all. His grip on Greg's shoulders tightened, his fingers aching abominably as he stared into the body's dull, vacant eyes. He offered no response to Salem. He merely stood there, breathing h...

It took Jacob a second to process what had happened. Why a loud bang had echoed through the room, why his face was suddenly damp, why Greg had slumped over in the chair like that. "... Greg?" It was already too late. Jacob knew that, awash as he now was with a splattering of Greg's blood. ...

Jacob nodded his head, almost a little too quickly, too desperately. His hand remained in a wicked deathgrip on the railing of the stairs. Salem being here was the worst fucking possible news, and he'd do everything he could to stop himself and Greg from ending up on the next set of announcements. &...

Jacob nudged his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. A futile effort to hide the edge of fear and alarm in his eyes.

"... when'd you get here, Salem?"

((Jacob Winters continued from Jacob & Greg Go To White Castle )) The sound of footsteps could be heard through the ceiling above the pair, trudging for the stairs near the front entrance. Soon they started heading down, revealing the figure they belonged to. "Hey, be real careful if you go...

"... yeah," he replied, sniffling again. "Sleeping it off is usually a good call." Jacob wasn't actually sure that it helped, really. But it beat sitting around idly, letting all the same shit continue to nag at him. Really, any wink of sleep was a blessing nowadays. He pulled th...

Jacob flinched as Greg laid the jacket over him, looking at the other boy with surprise. The gesture wasn't expected, though that didn't mean it wasn't welcome. "T-thanks... I..." He sniffled, wiping as his eyes just as the barest hints of tears were starting to show. He'd just wanted to l...

Jacob didn't say anything for a bit. He'd heard the apology, but he hadn't really processed it. Thinking about Francis had opened the floodgates and now his thoughts turned to home as a whole, now forever behind them. They turned to Francis and his bandmates and his goth scene friends and his sister...

Jacob's head tilted, his smile flipping back into a frown. "A few. I woke up near Kathleen. Haven't seen her since I left the lab, though." He hoped she was still kickin' out there. He hadn't heard her names on the announcements, but then he hadn't been paying close attention to them. He'd...