Am i crazy out of my mind in the situation i'm in?

it gets harder to breathe
feels like the walls are closing in
Sasha Violet Augustine

When the hammer had dropped and the muggleborns were told about Pyxis Jesse hadn't known what to feel. Everything was such a jumble in his mind, a mix of fluids rapidly being dumped down the drain, stirring and mixing together. There was happiness swirling with sadness, anger with relief, everything just whirling together into a giant collective muddy mass. He didn't quite know how to process it. Didn't really have the time to do so anyways. They had came and told them that this weekend would be the weekend that they would make the move. They had selected the youngest ones to go first, coming back for them in waves and bringing them over. They hadn't been given much time to pack, not that they needed it, no one really had much to their name at Kolna. Jesse only had a few items, and he left more than he took. He had heard that this new place had heat, so he had left his mining jacket for the others to wear. He hoped that it would keep someone warm, his flat had nearly emptied with the move. There four less bodies to huddle next to for warmth, and four less mouths that required food. He wondered if Nolan would be moved in with the others left behind or stay in the familiar flat.

It was nice to have so many other familiar faces coming with him. Devin, Sasha, Marisol, they were all at Pyxis now and that was a good thing. It meant they didn't have to do it alone. Didn't have to endure it alone. He had heard rumors in the mine that the school was going to be better off for them. A tiny step up from what they had been dealt at Kolna, and Jesse figured that any step forward was a step worth taking. And the fact that he would be learning magic again? That was a huge fucking leap. That fact alone made up a huge part of his potion of emotions, specifically the happy part. There were many downfalls too, but he would take them with a grain of salt to get a wand back in his hand. Still, he found himself skeptical of the new place and why they were even placed there in the first place.

Was it really going to be better? And if it was...why did they deserve it now? Jesse hadn't been keeping tabs on any Ministry activity, but he assumed there had been a shift of power. He had heard a woman was there now, which might explain the sudden kindness toward children. Woman were soft when it came to kids, more so than any man would be. They birthed them, cared for their own with a fierce protection, and they knew what it meant to raise them. Jesse assumed that this new Minster couldn't in good conscience leave these children in that shit hole. And lucky for him he was still considered a child, at least as far as schooling went. His time at Kolna had been brutal, and he didn't feel like a child in the least anymore. He had never really gotten the chance to be one, and now his school years felt like a far off distant memory. 

As far off as those memories seemed he could still recall his time at Hogwarts, and this place? Well, it was no Hogwarts, that was for sure. It was quite small, which was to be expected with their little group of students, and it was quite new. Not like the old stone and candle Hogwarts that Jesse had loved so much, yet he liked this place. It was warm and clean and better than Kolna in every way he could imagine. He hadn't seen not one cockroach yet! What a sad rating scale that would be: 10/10 no roaches, seems like a pretty swell place. Too bad that is the kind of level Kolna had brought his expectations down to, a place that he was happy to be in simply because there were no infestations. Because there was running water and it was warm. Because for the first time in a long time he could feel his fingers again!

For all the good things he found, he found a bad thing to counter it. Yes, there was warm water, but here was no alcohol here, which was quite the downer for him. He imagined there was no smoking as well, yet another draw back. Yes he had a bed now, but there was no Truly here. He couldn't simply sneak away and see her whenever she was away from school. Yes, OK! He had heat now, and that was great. But with that came a realization not so great. They weren't all here. There were people like Other Jesse and Bryce and Nolan who were still at Kolna. Still suffering there while he was here, living in the lap of low-level luxury. Knowing that was putting a damper on things for him. Every time he found something new to be excited about it reminded him of what they were missing back home. Pfft, home. Great, the first place Jesse had ever called home aside from Hogwarts and it had to be bloody Kolna!

Even though he was caught up in this mix of emotions, he felt mostly happy, and finding new things to be excited about was easy here. He would be getting a wand soon, that was great. There were classes that sounded quite magical, though how close to Hogwarts curriculum was still yet to be seen. And there was a library. Jesse never thought he'd be so damn happy to see a library again, to have books that he was allowed to read. He had managed to sneak some into Kolna that he had purchased at Flourish and Blott's, and he had shared them with Brooke in secret. But that's just what they were...a secret. These books? They could read them in public without a care in the world.

Jesse wandered the shelves looking at the names of the books with curious eyes. He was no Ravenclaw, not one to be highly intellectual, but he loved to learn about magic. Ever since first year. The tall boy plucked a book from an upper shelf and began sifting through it. It was in the charms section along with quite a few other books like it. He wondered if Brooke had seen this place yet... "What the fuck?" He blurted, bringing the book closer to his face and looking again at what he was reading. Cleaning spells? All sorts of them. He heard someone come to the opening of the section he was in and he looked up at them bewildered and slightly irritated. "What the... have you seen this?" He waved the book his bewilderment turning into a laugh. "I think they've sent us to janitor school. Check this shit out!"

WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS?

She didn’t know what to think about Pyxis. It was an opinion that she thought just about everyone shared. It was just something that no one had been expecting--and since it was brand new, no one had any way of knowing exactly what it was going to be like. They had all just heard that it was coming, and then all of a sudden… it was time to go. After everything that had happened, Sasha knew that she should be glad about anything that made them safe. Or at least, safer than they were at Kolna. She should be happy that they were here and not there, because here… well, here she hoped that being out past curfew didn’t mean that a Death Eater cursed you within an inch of your life. She wanted to think that it was just going to be like school and punishments would just be detention or something. They didn’t have house points to lose, but she thought that detention was a normal punishment… or maybe getting sent back to Kolna if someone really broke the rules.

But she didn’t know. That was the thing. There was no way to know if punishments here would be the type of punishments a student could expect at school, or if it was the type of punishments that Muggleborns had gotten used to in the past year. It would really take breaking a rule and getting caught to figure that out and that wasn’t something that she wanted to do. For now she would just have to wonder what would happen, and hope for the best. She had to hope that they wouldn’t be as… at risk for something awful happening here. Devin had almost died, she had almost died, and she didn’t think that Death Eaters were going to come around torturing kids at the school. Hopefully. She sort of hoped that was a part of the reason for this, but she also wasn’t naïve. Sasha didn’t think that any of them were coming into this with any kind of naïve optimism.

Maybe they were looking on the bright sides to why this was better, but that was different than hoping this was going to be anything like Hogwarts. Sasha had seen those bright sides too. This building wasn’t old, leaking, or infested with rats. Dorms were split up so that everybody had a bed. It wasn’t as comfortable as her bed had been at home, but it had been so long since she’d been in that bed that this one felt like heaven. There was just one nagging problem, that was driving her absolutely insane. She couldn’t sleep--and it wasn’t because she was used to sleeping on the floor. No, she thought that the bed had very little to do with it. Sasha thought that it had a lot more to do with the person that was not sleeping next to her here. It was the biggest problem that she had with Pyxis thus far. At Kolna, it didn’t matter if she slept pressed up against Devin every night. No one was going to stop here.

Here, though… in a school setting, it was a little more frowned upon for a girl and a guy to shack up and sleep next to each other every night. They had their own dorms, her with the other sixth year girls and him with the fifth year boys. And without him next to her, Sasha had found that it had been just about impossible for her to get to sleep last night. It was frustrating. She had a bed for the first time in nearly a year, and she couldn’t even appreciate it because she didn’t have Devin to sleep next to. And, of course, she didn’t know how to vocalize any of that. She could admit to herself that she cared about him--she wouldn’t have run outside when he was being tortured if she didn’t, but the fact of the matter was… that freaked her out. Caring about him freaked her out, so she couldn’t admit to him that she was having difficulty sleeping without him. Even though sneaking into his dorm room was getting more and more tempting.

Sasha didn’t know what would happen if she snuck into his room. She didn’t think that he would care. She just didn’t know how much trouble she would get into if she was caught. Getting into trouble to find out what kind of punishment she’d get here was not tempting at all--but sneaking into Devin’s dorm room was worth getting in trouble for. She thought that she would likely end up in there before too long. Sasha was just going to put it off as long as possible, because it was a little telling as far her feelings went. She just wasn’t ready for that to be all out in the open. The best way to avoid acting on that urge was to keep busy, so she’d decided to check out the library. Actually having options of books to read was definitely a good change, but it didn’t take long for her to sense a theme as far as their options went. Looking up when she heard a familiar voice, Sasha gestured at the book in her hand. “Not much better for herbology. A Guide to Dealing with Household Pests, right next to De-Gnoming -- A How-To.” A part of her wasn’t all that surprised. With their wands, it wasn’t like they could learn real magic anyway.

AM I CRAZY OUT OF MY MIND IN THE SITUATION I'M IN?

IT GETS HARDER TO BREATHE
FEELS LIKE THE WALLS ARE CLOSING IN
Sasha Violet Augustine

Jesse had been luckier than so many others when it came to his time at Kolna. He had managed to endure minimal torture, nothing even close to what Devin and Sasha had encountered. He had a pretty decent job, though the work itself was back breaking. Best of all, he rarely had to deal with pureblooded assholes. The mines were filled with muggleborn workers, like himself, and the foreman wasn't as horrible as he could have been. As long as Jesse did the work, pulled the numbers he was required and then some, the man showed that he could be quite easy to deal with. He was even kind enough to give Jesse smokes and take him for drinks after work when he did well. He really couldn't complain. It wasn't like the Faith who got spit on, or Other Jesse who went into every day not knowing what to expect. Jesse had it pretty good. 

He also had his past on his side. Kolna hadn't been the first shit hole he had dealt with, but he hoped it would be the last. As a child he had ended up in a few questionable places. Stuck with hoarders, in homes covered in cat feces and urine, piled to the windows with trash. Ugh, that had been the absolute worst. The day he had found a dead cat buried in the trash heap that was the kitchen was the day he had called Monica his damn self. Usually it was the other way around, the families would call her and beg for him to be taken away. That was the first and only time he had called her, but if he could have called her when he arrived at Kolna he would have. God, he so would have. They had come to an agreement eons ago about cleanliness and the fact that he could NOT deal with disgusting shit like that. Kolna wasn't as bad as the hoarders house, but it was a close fucking second.

And that night with the mattress. Oh Lord, he could vomit just thinking of it. They had but one mattress in the flat and when someone had finally been brave enough to sleep on it they quickly found why it was a terrible idea. It squirmed and squeaked and oozed the slime of rotting rat bodies, and the smell. That smell. It was like it couldn't be washed away. He showered over and over in that freezing cold water trying to remove it, but it clung to him. Clung to all of them, that horrible stench. He still wasn't sure how long it had been before it disappeared, or whether or not he had simply become accustomed to it. Either way, he hoped he would never smell anything like it again.

Kolna had been one of the several reasons he had picked up smoking, again. He had done it for a while as a young teen to be 'cool', but found the habit hard to keep at Hogwarts. Once he was sent to Kolna it had started up again. Part of the reason had been for a quick little stress relief, the other to mask the stench with another. Cigarette smoke wasn't enticing, but damn did it smell better than cockroach shit! He was trying to cut back again. Ever since he saw Truly. He didn't want her to smell that and think of him, or taste it when they kissed, or leave it lingering in her bed when he left. And now that he was back in school he figured it was as good of time as ever. Still hard as hell to kick the habit though. He found himself a bit cranky from it, to put it lightly, but tried not to let it get to him too much. Jesse didn't know what to expect here for insubordination, and he sure as hell didn't want to be the first to find out.

So he would keep his mouth shut. Try to, at least. But seeing the names of the books, the content inside, he found it a little hard not to be a little irritated and disappointed. He shouldn't have expected much. He knew that, but still, cleaning charms? And a manual on household pests? This was some next level bullshit. He couldn't help but wish he and Brooke would have brought their own books along. Maybe then they could learn something that didn't sound like a Better Homes and Gardens magazine. He wondered for a moment if she didn't bring hers with... He hadn't. Instead he had given them away. They could burn them for warmth, if they wanted. Or for fun in the courtyard while drinking stolen ale like he used to do.

Wait, was he getting sentimental about fucking Kolna?! Oh jeez. It was for the best they took him out of there, clearly he was losing his damn mind. Yes. He most certainly was. But sometimes the freedom of it seemed more worth it than here... The ability to leave, go to work, sneak out, see Truly. He couldn't do any of those things here. Instead he was confined to three little buildings, and he had noticed the Death Eater watching them as they moved in. He felt more confined now than he had before. It was suffocating. More amenities, less freedom. Like going from jail to prison. 

Jesse let out a soft sigh and put the book back up on the shelf, gazing over a few more. The entire row seemed to be about cleaning. "Speedy Scourging Spells," he read aloud. The tall lad chuckled, and not for anything funny. More so to keep from pushing the whole shelf over and giving up on the damn school before he even started. "I don't know what I expected... It wasn't this, though. Is it pretty pitiful that I was kind of hoping for, I don't know, actual magic? With these wands though, not happening. I guess we're just going to be...." Fucked no matter what. That was what he wanted to say, but his focus shifted to the next row of books. He pulled down a thick book focusing on various household repairs from the shelf and held it up with a laugh. "Really, really good at Reparo. Probably the best, honestly. Maybe we'll even be able to reparo our fucking lives."

what fresh hell is this?

She’d had a bad feeling from the moment that she’d heard about this school. Sasha wouldn’t categorize herself as an optimist. After everything that had happened since they had been taken from Hogwarts and forced to register, she thought that it would be absolutely idiotic to be anything other than a realist. Maybe even a pessimist. At least if she was a pessimist, then she would be ready to expect the worst--and then maybe be surprised when something turned out all right instead of just outright bad. It had just seemed liked the safest bet. And pessimistically, a school for Muggleborns was not going to be a good thing. There was absolutely no reason to think that it was going to be anything other than an absolutely horrible thing, just in a different kind of way. After what had happened with Rabastan Lestrange out on the streets in front of Kolna, Sasha knew that she should take these improvements and be happy about them. She had to think that Death Eaters wouldn’t be just walking around Pyxis torturing people. If this was really a school, then the punishments for being out of bed after a certain time would hopefully not be being tortured within an inch of your life. That was something that she didn’t want to experience again--and she hadn’t even been the one that was tortured. Devin had gotten hurt far worse than she had and that had been awful to see. It was something that she didn’t want to see again, and she wanted him to feel better. If that was even possible. That had been the night where she had finally been able to admit to herself that she cared about him. It would be stupid to try to tell herself that she didn’t after everything that had happened. He had been being tortured and she’d run outside to make sure that he didn’t get hurt. She couldn’t deny caring about him after that. But he had been different since that night. For obvious reasons. Sasha just didn’t know what it would take to help him get back to normal. She was not exactly the first person that would come to anyone’s mind when they were choosing who to comfort them or help them. It wasn’t anything that she was even all that good at. So, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do to help him, she just knew that she wanted to. She missed his quick remarks when she said something insulting. She missed him. That night had been awful. It had been the worst night of her life and she thought it was probably pretty safe to say that it had been his too. He had been hurt far worse than she had. Hurt enough to change him, and she knew that. There was a chance that the person she’d started to get feelings for was always going to be different now than he had been when she’d first caught the feelings to begin with. But she didn’t know that yet--and she didn’t know what that would even mean, even if he had changed. Sasha just knew that she wanted to help and see what happened. Maybe it would go nowhere. It probably would. They seemed a little doomed. She hoped that she was wrong. She just… didn’t know. There was no way of knowing until they got there. Only time would tell in a situation like this one. But she had to think that Devin was better off at the school than he was back at that apartment. She didn’t think that he needed the reminders of what had happened on the street right outside any more than she did. He would be safe here. That was something. Sasha had no idea if he missed her sleeping with him as much as she missed sleeping with him, but she thought she’d find out soon enough. She was far too tempted to sneak into his dormitory and she wasn’t good at denying herself something that she wanted. She could put it off maybe a bit longer, but not for too long. “Now that would actually be useful…” If only their lives were that easy to fix. It seemed next to impossible at this point and there showed no signs of any of this getting better. People had thought that the school had been some kind of indicator of change but clearly it was anything but.

AM I CRAZY OUT OF MY MIND IN THE SITUATION I'M IN?

IT GETS HARDER TO BREATHE
FEELS LIKE THE WALLS ARE CLOSING IN

He couldn't believe how foolish he felt for thinking that this damn school would be anything but a big publicity stunt. That's what it was, wasn't it? Something that the new minster could wave in front of the faces of the people to win their affections? Assure them change had indeed come and that, while she maybe agreed with their mission, she didn't agree with their treatment? But still, how fucking stupid of him to have, even for a moment, thought anything good could come of this place. He had never been an optimist by any means, the opposite actually. Jesse knew full well that whatever bad shit could happen would surely happen to him. It always had and probably always would. The boy had been born cursed, he was sure of it, and every time he thought things were looking up life would find a way to shove him back down. 

Sixth year had been a good example of that. Hell, every year was a good fucking example of that, but sixth year was sort of the topper on his cake. It was the slippery slope of unfortunate events that had lead him here. He had spent most of last year in a wishy-washy state of affairs trying to figure out what exactly he had been feeling for his best friend. There had been something brewing between them for a while; everyone seemed to be able to see it except for them. When he finally had worked up the nerve to tell her about it near the end of the spring term he had been met with bad news. She was taken, well, sort of. It was more of a promise to potentially be taken, a promise to go on a date. Nothing was set in stone and for Jesse that only meant one thing. That he still had a chance. 

So he had taken it-- a total shot in the dark-- he had kissed her and proposed that she court them both. A large part of him thought she'd have smacked him or called him crazy. Maybe he fucking was, but he didn't want to lose his shot. Not with her. Any other girl he might have dropped it, but this was Truly. It was different. Instead she had surprised him and agreed. For three months they maintained their complicated romance. She was his on Hogwarts grounds, Luke's everywhere else. That made it easy, in a way, it was almost like Luke didn't exist at all. Like he was a figment of his imagination, some made up fictional character that wasn't real at all. It also made it incredibly fucking complex. He didn't want to have to share her. Not with Luke, not with anyone. 

When she would come back from seeing him it was all he could do to not go crazy. His mind would run wild all day wondering if they had kissed, whether he had touched her, whether they had hooked up. He knew he couldn't be upset, he had asked for this relationship outright. The terms were clear, there were no surprises, but damn. He could have gone crazy wondering if Luke knew about him too. They had slept together, did Luke fucking know that? He didn't know what Luke knew and he didn't really know what she was keeping from him. Something told him she wasn't keeping anything, at least not from him. She was his best friend and probably the only person he could say he honestly trusted. Something told him, too, that there was more between them than her and Luke. Just as he was feeling like she might actually dump the other bloke and just be with him registration had came.

From there his life went right down the shitter. Whether he liked it or not Luke won and he had lost. He had lost so fucking miserably and he had lost everything. It was heartbreaking. Every. Single. Thing. It broke him down in a way that he had never been before. His life had been rough before but this was something else. Nothing had ever broken his spirit as much as registration had. He had lost the girl, his wand, Monica and Delia, everyone. The only thing that stuck by him, through thick and thin, had been alcohol and the damn rats in his flat. It was almost a good thing that he had turned to drinking or he might have been more alert the day he had been hurt in the mines. He would have never been sent to Saint Mungo's to reunite with Truly. And had that not happened he would have never broken into her house at two in the morning over Easter break and told her that he wanted her back. 

It would have seemed that his shitty luck was finally taking a turn for the better. He had the girl, he had a wand, he had heat now. All of the good things started adding up and he felt a little hopeful. For the first time in a long time he felt hopeful, but now he was beginning to see that he shouldn't have been. All the goods were quickly turning back into bads right before his very eyes. Shitty school, shitty subjects with a shitty wand and, oh yeah, now he couldn't even see his girl. And dammit did he want a smoke! When Sasha spoke about the usefulness of using reparo for their lives he felt a little bit bad. He had such piddly things to complain of where as she had much bigger issues at hand. She and Devin both had been...different. Something like that--- it had a way of changing people.

"At least we're out of Kolna," Jesse shrugged, glancing over at her as he put the book back on the shelf. At least they were confined away from loose cannons like the death eater who tortured kids in the streets. "How are you holding up?"

what fresh hell is this?

❧

She hadn’t known what to think about Pyxis. She just hadn’t. The timing might have been convenient. Maybe she was a little glad that she didn’t have to worry about running into Rabastan Lestrange again. Maybe she was happy that she didn’t have to walk out the door of their building every day and immediately be transported back to that night, just by looking at the street when it had happened. Maybe they would be safer there, but she wasn’t sure that any of those maybes were worth the reality. Yes, they had been in danger out with the rest of the Muggleborns. Maybe those apartments had been horrible, maybe the jobs had been worse, but the jobs ended. Their work day ended, and they got to go back to their apartments and do whatever they wanted with their nights. Within reason, obviously. But it was something. It was some kind of power, in a situation where they didn’t get to control anything else.

If she had wanted to come home from work and drink with Devin, or play Never Have I Ever, or shag him even when there were other people sleeping nearby, then that was her choice. No one was going to stop her. No one cared what the mudbloods did in their spare time. They just didn’t. That was taken away from them here. Everything felt controlled. There were dormitories and probably rules… plenty, and plenty of rules. There had been rules back at Hogwarts, but that was different. That was so, incredibly different. Sasha could barely bring herself to think about her life back then. It felt so far away. It felt like a lifetime ago. But somehow, it had been a year. Not even a year. It was unbelievable, to think that only last May they had walked into the end of term ball expecting nothing bad to happen. But that had been the night that had changed everything… that had eventually brought them here. A year ago, her life had been completely different. It had been better. In most every way, it had been better.

There was really only one thing about her life last year that maybe she wouldn’t have liked now. Last year, she hadn’t given Devin Wright the time of day. Last year, he had been some boy. Some obviously poor, obviously not good-enough-for-her… boy. She didn’t think that now. It wasn’t that he had changed. Like he had gotten any better, or any worse. Sasha thought that he was just about the same. What had happened to them this past year was likely not all that different than how he had grown up. No, he hadn’t changed. She just thought that maybe she had, just a little. Enough to know that she wanted him when last year she wouldn’t have even given him a second look. If she could go back in time, if she could take all of this back and go to the way that life used to be, then she wouldn’t have him and that was… strange to think about now. Luckily, that wasn’t exactly an option that she actually had to consider.

But the rest of it… the rest of it, she missed. She missed her parents, she missed her home, her clothes… her life. She missed taking her father’s platinum card and going shopping for the day. She missed spa days with her friends, where they were pampered for hours on end. Merlin, she could use something like that now. She missed being able to be awful to people without feeling bad about it. And sure, she still didn’t always feel bad about it now. But it felt a little ridiculous to bully people when their lives were already horrible. What good was a passive aggressive comment going to do her now? Nothing. That was annoying. Feeling like that was annoying, but it didn’t change the fact that it was true. There was nothing to be gained from making people cry at in Kolna or at work or here. It was a silly thing to miss, but she did miss it. Every day got them further and further away from the way their lives were supposed to be.

What had happened on the street that night was proof of that. She knew that she had been lucky, all things considered. He had hit her, he had tortured her, but Devin had gotten the worst of it. That was what she kept telling herself. Devin got the worst of it. And he had. He had shielded her with his own body when Lestrange had started going off the rails. He had been unable to fight back when the Death Eater had used the Imperius Curse on her and got her to torture him. In comparison, she had gotten off easy. Somehow that didn’t make it any easier. She didn’t know why. Sasha fixed Jesse with a look as he spoke again, momentarily annoyed that he would actually ask her that--that he would actually say something like that out loud at all. But a moment later, she was smiling. A practiced little smile. One that said, yes… I’m fine, thank you for asking. That was what she was going for, at least. “Just great, Jesse. How are you holding up?” She shot the question back at him, her tone pointed. How were any of them doing? What was the point in asking that?

@ jesse

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AM I CRAZY OUT OF MY MIND IN THE SITUATION I'M IN?

IT GETS HARDER TO BREATHE
FEELS LIKE THE WALLS ARE CLOSING IN

Jesse had never been good at being confined. Growing up in the homes that he did it was never something he had to become accustomed to. Those families didn't care if he came or went-- as a matter of fact, they preferred it when he wasn't around, so he would stay away as long as he could. He would crash at friend's houses, get caught up in shit he shouldn't have been caught up in, stay out all night wreaking havoc. Those had been the good old days. The days when he was free. It was sort of funny to think about how he had been looking forward to that freedom again as the end of his sixth year approached almost a year ago. He was feeling on top of the world then; he had the girl, he was graduating the following year, working hard on making something of himself. How fucking comical to think he had once believed he could turn his life around. As if it ever could be turned around and not steered right into another steaming pile of shit. He didn't know why he ever let himself get hopeful after the life he had lead, but he did. He did and it was always to do with her.

He knew that Truly had always had it harder than him, though they both grew up in some of the absolutely worst ways. Somehow she always remained hopeful. She was determined to become a healer some day. No matter how her world would fall apart around her she'd hold steady and bare it like the cliffs among the crashing sea. He admired her for that, even aspired to be like that in his own way. He supposed he was like that. Always getting back up no matter how many times life knocked him down. He was a fighter at heart and nothing, no matter what torture or bullshit would be thrown his way, would ever change that. So when registration had come around he dealt with it pretty well. As well as anyone could, really. He had a job which he had considered easy enough. Take the pick, break the wall. Pretty fucking simple. Sure, it was hard, but after a few weeks the pain sort of became numb as did the rest of him as he found easy ways to snag booze from a store near the mines. 

Alcohol was his saving grace for the longest time, especially the first few months. He had been so broken up about everything all while trying to cope with this new lifestyle and....well, he didn't want to talk to anybody about any of it. He could deal with it himself, shove those feelings down, pour some whiskey on them, and keep on truckin. Sure, he had kind of wished he could just truck right off a cliff somewhere, but he had gotten past it. And with minimal torturing, thank the gods! Even though it had seemed for a while that he was almost looking to get tortured. He had found a way to sneak out of Kolna after hours and took advantage of it way too many times. There were more than a handful of nights he probably should have been hexed to hell and back, but he managed to stay pretty lucky. Well, luckier than some. Luckier than Devin had been.

That poor bloke, all he had done was set foot outside and he'd been cursed to absolute insanity. That was the issue with curses like that, of course, the scars they left on the body might fade but the mental ones would always remain. He wasn't exactly insane, but something was definitely different and it made Jesse feel guilty. He almost felt like he should have been there to help, somehow. He was always the one to jump into a fight without even a second thought. If his friends were knee deep in shit then so was he! But he hadn't even been around that night. Nope, another dumb night of sneaking out and being an idiot. He didn't even know what happened until the next morning when whispers had been flying around fast as golden snitches. Jesse was never one for rumors but when it came to his friend's name he paid a little more attention.

Even after the incident, even after the rumors stopped circling, Jesse hadn't really took it upon himself to talk to either of them about it. That was just something you didn't do. Something he didn't know how to do, really. In the streets you just took that shit with a grain of salt and kept on, but he felt bad not to. He didn't know them from the streets, he didn't know if that was how normal people carried on with their lives, ignoring major life changing shit like that. And honestly he didn't know how to even ask if either of them was OK after that, but he wanted to. A part of him cared about them. Fuck, man, they were Registration Relation now, which meant that they all had to look out for each other now. Maybe it was just him, but that was how he saw it.

Sasha didn't seem to think that, and he really didn't assume she would. In school she had kept to her circles, giving a shit only about herself and whatever was 'good enough' for her. People like him, people like Devin, they weren't on that list. Not until recently, anyway. Jesse cocked his head, smiling slyly back at her. He tried to convey the 'hey I tried' vibe, though he probably looked more like he was amused than anything with the little ruse she was putting on. "I am doing just peachy, Sasha." He said feigning some sort of customer service type voice, albeit a sarcastic one. "Which is why I'm soooo talkative and not distant at all." This time his voice became more pointed at her.