(1942-02-16) Down By The Watauga
Down by the Watauga
Summary: A pair of fishermen get an eyefull.
Date: 1942-02-16
Related: None.
Players:
jesse..lucietta..

River Front, Higsi


Thurs Feb 16, 1942

The Watauga River flows right along side Watauga Drive. In some places it seems quite deep, in others shallow enough to walk across. The bank slopes gently down toward the river and flattens out before the water, making this an ideal spot for fishing.

Weather:
It is winter. The weather is cool and overcast.


(OOC: I'm a derp and erased the rolls by accident. Jesse rolled Enhanced Senses, Lillie rolled Empath; both got 'Good Success'.)

The afternoon is gradually beginning to wend it's way toward the early evening, and the clouds above form a fine haze over the setting sun, lending to the skies a decidedly 'pastel' feel. Overall, it's not a terrible sight; if anything, it's a fine end to a crisp, cool day. This warm, encompassing light finds it's way onto the burbling trajectory of the Watauga River… it's all quite relaxing. Lillie O'Clery is once again back here, wiling away her multitudes of thoughts — and worries — in hopes of allowing nature to ease the burden a bit. There are others here, too; a couple of old men, swearing by the time of day /despite/ it being winter, have hunches that their lures shall fetch fish if they're patient enough. Mind you this old set is dwindling, aiming to make their way home before evening truly falls.

Seated upon a grassy part of the sloping shore, though said grass is dead and brown, Lillie is observing the going-ons with a solemn yet friendly expression. The sunlight forms coins of light upon her forehead and cheeks and she lifts a hand to shield her eyes from the strong glare. She is picking up on the emotions of that pair of old men, and their long-standing and deeply-sown friendship — rife with wisecracks and bawdy humor and familiarity — is as entertaining as one might expect. It is taking everything in the Empath not to join in on their boisterous laughter.

Jesse couldn't decide if he wanted to head into town or not, especially after the 'talk' he had earlier with Clyde. His throat is still a little sore, but there are thankfully no bruises. He has his walking stick with him and every now and then he practices swinging it a little in front the way they taught. He just finds that weird and slightly unnecessary here in Higsy. In a city, sure…it's that or get run over by a car or slam into a wall. But here, things don't change often enough for him to be worried. He can still see it in his mind's eye and smell or hear if anything is different.

The banter of the old men is heard before he even gets to the river, idly swinging his walking stick as if cutting wheat or playing golf. He has a satchel slung over a shoulder and is actually clean-shaven for a change. His sunglasses are a little scuffed, but he doesn't seem to notice.

Well speak — think? — of the devil and he shall appear. It's been nearly a couple of weeks since seeing Jesse in the diner that evening. Plenty of time to pass for Lillie to worry herself half-mad. Because needless to say, due to a couple of meetings with Clyde, Lillie had… a hunch. No, she had no idea as to what the repercussions /truly/ meant for Jesse but she was left to her own mental devices to assume. Lillie goes on with her quiet mental process, simultaneously thinking of the problems in that alleyway and worrying if Jesse got in over his head a bit. Her green eyes watch the old men but don't see them; her sense works itself to and fro like feelers, focusing upon very little. Her mind is just so /loaded/…

And then she sees him. Still a bit far away to 'feel' what he could be emoting but there's no mistaking the young man with the stick. Lillie jerks her head up, eyes wide and mouth open in a gasp. She pushes herself to her feet, collecting her skirts swiftly and padding along the broad edge of the river. It /is/ him!

"Jesse?" The Irish girl calls, then again with a bit more strength. "Jesse! Over here!" Lillie continues making her way toward him. Is he… did he /shave/?

Jesse turns at the sound of his name, recognizing the voice almost instantly. There's a brief moment of hesitation and a hand lifts to rub at his throat, but he starts towards Lillie's voice. He was also lost in his own thoughts, mostly about what transpired earlier and what he's going to do about it, but he seems happy with his decision to move along the river, following the familiar voice. A hand lifts in greeting and he can't help but give a grin as he gets closer. Maybe it's in anticipation of presenting what's in the satchel to her or maybe it's just finally seeing her after almost two weeks. "This is a nice surprise! I was heading towards town to see if I could find you!" is offered once he gets more into the conversational distance.

Of course, the calling out to each other might get the attention of the two fishermen.

Okay, now she's flat-out hoofing it in her ugly gumboots, their heavy soles making squelchy sounds in the damper parts of the path. Lillie catches herself, slows her gait again; forgets, sprints again with her heavy braid bouncing. But by the time she reaches the young Walker, she has slowed down again.. he may not be able to see the astounded worry in her features, but there are nuances in her lyrically accented voice that point directly to her concern. Thank God almighty there's no bruising on his throat, else she would likely go right off the deep end!

Now in proximity, that which she senses from Jesse far outweighs her brief bit of 'eavesdropping' upon the fishermen, who are now glancing thoughtfully and mayhaps a bit nosily. Lillie couldn't care one whit; the happiness she senses mingles with her own, forming a heady brew in her belly and chest which leads her to outright do what her gut /wants/ her to do. Perhaps it's the worry, too, that goads her along; she does not want Jesse to worry for her, assuming that is what is afoot here. If he will allow her, Lillie will carefully seek out the arm that wields the stick and provided she gets a grip, straight-up yanks the poor guy in for a fierce hug. "I've been bloody worried about you, are you okay?!" She asks, outright. You bet your bippy she's anxious and more than happy to see him again.

Jesse tilts his head slightly at the uneven gait he hears from Lillie, but the pull into the hug catches him by surprise and he gives a little stumble. "Oh…oh!" well, he doesn't seem to be upset by it at all. In fact, he seems quite willing to wrap his arms about her to return the hug. "What? I'm fine! Went over to Nashville with the Preacher for some training at the School for the Blind there. See?" He goes to reach for one of her hands and pulls back a little so he can bring it to his cheek. "Smooth as a baby's backside, huh?"

Wait. "You were worried about me?" Awww!

The fishermen chuckle between themselves; whether or not they're drawing conclusions seeing the two carrying on like that, or even delving further and recognizing Jesse as a Walker.. again, who knows. One turns his attention back to his line and the other goes on observing. Lillie thinks to herself that /maybe/ she was a bit too forward, just maybe… but she's been worried, yes! She was worried that there may have been something brewing with Jesse's cousins, at home! Or maybe there was fallout to her foolish trek into the hills /or/ how she carried on with Clyde or.. agh!

The Empath wills her mind to just… calm. /Calm/. Hugs are very grounding, and also a bit.. uh… twitterpating. What a silly word to describe the giddiness, but there you have it. He's okay and /feels/ OK; there's no lash of upset or anything else to tell her that she did the wrong thing. Lillie allows herself one more protective squeeze before her hand is brought up to touch his cleanshaven face. Her expression brightens with flustered pleasure. "Well look at you, all handsome for the Preacher. That makes sense… sometimes my mind escapes me. But I was worried, I really was. I encountered some of your kin in the previous week or so, and.. I just worried that I may have caused trouble for you. T—that you may have been told not to…" She trails off, looks at him with her doe eyes that he cannot see. "How was your trip to Nashville?"

If they're locals, they probably recognize him as a Walker. Whether or not they care, he doesn't know. Nor does Jesse care. He got a hug and he didn't even have to beg for it! "I didn't get cleaned up for the Preacher…" is offered with a crooked sort of grin. Surely she knows that. It fades as she mentions -why- she was worried and he gives a little sigh. "They didn't cause too much trouble." He'll live. "But you have to promise not to go up into the Hills again, ok? I told them that you did, but…believe me. It's not safe." That's all he can really say about that. "They wouldn't tell me not to…" see her? Talk to her? "They wouldn't." Unless they didn't think she'd listen.

"The trip was fine. The Preacher's nice, but he wasn't the best company. Being at the school was interesting…they taught us a lot and the city is noisy and smelly and would probably drive me crazy if I lived there for too long." They're still standing awfully close, aren't they?

"Oh. Uh." He reaches into his satchel and pulls out a heart-shaped box of chocolates. "Happy Valentine's Day. A little late." Hopefully they aren't too stale.

"Oh, so…" Blink. So he didn't… shave.. for the trip. Does that mean he..? Ooooooh. Lillie's cheeks darken again as she reads between the lines, but honestly cannot help but grin just that little bit more. He sure cleans up nice! She will even reach up to give Walker's chin and the side of his cheek another rub for good measure. "Smooth as a baby's bottom indeed." She muses again, forgetting herself. An emotion, forgotten and alien to her in this moment, comes forth from the sidelines: that watching fisherman isn't exactly 'put off' by what is happening, but is indeed curious at the sight of the two standing so close! It's a probing emotion, breaking the Empath's reverie and causing her to step back and look full-on into the young man's face.

Wait, why are his glasses scuffed..? He drop them? Pack them wrong? Lillie ponders but does not ask, because she is giving Jesse her full attention now as he answers her harried questions! Her fingers itch to grab his again, to punctuate her promise.. but she's not going to be /too/ forward. "I promise. I truly, truly do… I won't set foot even upon the foot of the path. I have really learned my lesson." She blinks, then looks down briefly at her feet. She forgets, often, that Jesse cannot see her fluster and her attempts to hide it. "I'm glad you can come back here. I never.. /never/ want to cause problems with you and your kin. If staying here and meeting you here is what will keep the peace, I swear it.. I'll be happy with that." She pledges, looking up again to listen to the rest of Jesse's tale. Her lips curl up again, the tense worry fading slowly. "I don't miss the city, myself… it /is/ stinky and noisy and not what I would recommend to most anyone. There's a reason I left." She admits, then pauses. Oh… /oh/.

Chocolates. Lillie's eyes widen, /widen/… a little gasp. "You.. truly didn't have to—-" There's a tremulous joy in her tone, she can't help it. "Oh, Jesse! That is just too kind!" She cries out, getting ready to grab at him again for a hug with the poor chocolates running the risk of being squished. "I've never been gifted chocolates before.."

Jesse doesn't seem to mind the touch to his face at all…he instigated the first, but since she didn't seem to pull away then and even went in for a second may bode well! In fact, he can't really hide a grin or a flush as she does so. He -learned- how to shave himself on the trip, but he made sure he was cleanly shaven when he met up with her. Ahem.

The reiteration of the promise has him nodding, his expression turning a little more serious. "I'll tell them that. You were just lucky that Clifton found you and not someone else. But meeting down here is probably best." And safest for her. But she still wants to meet with him! That's two!

His grin returns as they go back to mentioning the city, "But they had hot showers. Inside. I took one of those every day when I was there…and the running water was all indoors…it was like living in the lap of luxury!" Compared to their shacks, at least.

And then he gets swept back up into another hug, "I hope they're good! Fanciest box I could find…or…the Preacher could find. But it felt fancy and smelled fancy…" He certainly isn't begrudging that third hug in the last ten minutes, but, "Miss Lillie, if you keep on hugging me like this, I'm going to be sorely tempted to kiss you." It's not really a warning.

Well, he did a great job of it. There's merits to enhanced senses and assumedly, a stronger sense of touch. As scary as it may seem to be bringing a blade to your face without your sense of sight… well. Like most things in life, it seems that didn't stop Jesse in the matter of personal grooming either! Lillie has to wrangle herself in because at the heart of it all, she's just so relieved. Yes she missed him terribly; yes she's supremely glad to see him.. but there's the relief. There was a tightness in that first hug that denoted protectiveness, but by now she lightened up a bit on her.. ah, force.

"Clifton was a great help… and well," She looks down at the box of chocolates held in the crook of an elbow. "I met Clyde. L—let's just say, had he been the one looming over me while I had my leg all snared up, I would have uprooted t'whole thing and started swimming back t'Ireland." She admits, /trying/ to lighten up the admittance with a bit of humor but there is an inflection in her voice that reveals her true feelings. She is both afraid of and sympathetic toward Clyde. "Hence why I am all-too agreeable in meeting here. I don't want to step on any toes." She pauses then, also smiling a bit upon mention of a small town fellow's experience in the big smoke.

"I really don't blame you there." She says regarding the showers, but feels a pang of sadness. How bad off /are/ the Walkers? Lillie looks up at Jesse again, tilting her head. "D'you have to go there again, in the eventual future? Jjst so I'm not here getting in a worried lather again." She says ruefully.

The chocolates? Lillie quickly says rather happily, "They'll be wonderful, I'm sure. I will have to make sure Josie doesn't eat most of them. Thank you so much, truly… and.. well." She blinks, blushes. Fishermen be damned, they're getting a show now. "What if I'm much obliged to a kiss? Because I really did miss you, y'know." The Empath admits, now practically /glowing/.

"Clyde…" Jesse gives a sigh. He'd bring up a hand to rub at his neck, but he's already so close to Lillie that putting space between them might break this little spell going on. "He's got a lot weighing on him. We had…bad stuff happen a few years ago and we're still dealing with it and he's in charge so he's dealing with most of it." There's more detail that he's not saying on purpose, of course. "He's a good man. He just does what he has to do to keep us all safe and that sometimes means not being so nice." His hand lifts to lightly brush at the ends of her hair, feeling the softness on his hands, "You just be your nice self to him and maybe he'll melt a little."

He's lost for a moment in the feel of her hair on his fingers before he asks, "Back where? Nashville? I dunno. I guess if the Preacher wants to take me. I guess they had some folks come out here from up North to teach us about doing things for ourselves. The school there is mostly for kids, but they're trying to teach us too. They had a teacher come out here for a little when everything first happened, but guess it's cheaper to go visit there for a group of us." He smiles down at her, "Next time, if I go, I'll make sure you know about it."

"Now, I didn't get those chocolates for Josie," Jesse admonishes with a teasing tone. "I got those for you. You can share them with whoever you want, but they're -your- chocolates." When she doesn't seem disgusted by the idea of a kiss and even seems open to it, his hand lightly travels up her jawline to her cheek and then to her lips. Maybe he needs a little guidance? He's never kissed someone blind before.

The Empath's hair is as soft as one might imagine it to be, most of it pulled back into a thick, hastily assembled braid. There are loose hanks of it hanging wavily around her face, fettered by the dampness in the air: the arch-nemesis of fingerwaves. Lillie watches Jesse's face as he speaks on Clyde, still wondering what happened to his shades… wondering, not for the first time, how he fell blind. The way he operates, it's as if the affliction has been long and accustomed to… from birth? From a sickness? An accident? That is a question for another day, now that she is of a mind to /really/ get to know him better. Her eyes flit to the fingers that touch her hair, and she's not against the thought of it whatsoever. Lillie's romantic heart, always so quick to beat for others, now finds itself at a complete and wonderful loss. "I. I've been trying. I really have. But I don't want to patronize him… I've a feeling he's not a man who takes to charity well. T'best I can do is follow his rules, and we'll take it from there." Lillie says softly, unable to stop the shy smile that follows.

"Aye, Nashville," She clarifies, dipping her head once. She pays close attention… so when 'everything' first happened? Was there in fact an event that led to Jesse's blindness? Her lips twist again, wanting so badly to know but somehow knowing it's not the time. "Thank you so much. I don't want to seem t'sort to know all, and I'm not always such a worrywart. But after everything with the snare, your kin and my encounters with Clyde.. I worried that you were stuck in the hills. It's silly of me—"

She does not go on to say more on the matter, how she outright worried that Clyde may have clobbered him. Jesse urges her not to share her chocolatey bounty. "Well those old girls, they're predatory for their sweets, and, I—" Yup. She's pausing again because he's touching /her/ face now. It's the best way for the blind Walker to perhaps determine what Lillie looks like: smooth skin, that clean lilac perfume, fine-boned features. She 'feels' dainty, there's no traces of 'too much' makeup. Lillie blinks once, twice, her sense and her own emotions askew as if those mental 'radio frequencies' are caught in a static wasteland. She catches the cue and always of a mind to help, Lillie cants her chin up to press her lips to Walker's own.

The fishermen aren't watching the river anymore. c_c

Clyde is forgotten. The showers in Nashville are forgotten. Why think about all of that when he's kissing a lovely woman? Jesse doesn't even need to see her to know that she is one, although the light touch to her face does confirm that a little. They told him that's how he would know what people looked like, but he knew his kin and he didn't really care what Clifton looked like. But Lillie is someone special. Maybe one day soon he'll want to 'see' her a little more, but right now, her lips on his, he's not really thinking about that.

He's not thinking much at all.

His kiss is tentative at first, but when she responds, it becomes stronger. More intense. Not forceful, but it's been a while coming and there's a bit of pent up energy behind it.

The fishermen are getting quite the show! One can hope they aren't the sort to spread rumors.

Now here's one of the 'funner' parts of being an Empath. Most of it is cause for a plethora of experiences, but this is some sweet indeed. Not only can Lillie thoroughly enjoy that which is elicited in her own mind and body as a result of kissing a most attractive young man, but she can tune into what that young man is feeling! Of course that could be dangerous too if she's of a mind to keep herself controlled, because in the grand scheme of it all Lillie /is/ a careful girl. The kiss is a wonderful concession, something she mulled around in her own mind on occasion ever since the snare incident… but she reckons this could be the beginning of really exploring something with the young Walker.

Okay Lillie, enough thinking.. more smooch. She can easily sense the degree of care behind Jesse's side of things; she is unsure as to when he last kissed a girl and frankly, she doesn't want to consider it! But there is definitely a pent up quality to it, all of it boiling down to the fact that he /is/ a young man to boot. So when he does not push or get grabby, actually treads the fine line between being careful and giving in, this only endears him to Lillie more. Balancing the chocolates beneath an arm, she reaches up with both hands and gently cradles Jesse's face, taking care not to muss his glasses. She presses in just that bit more, thoroughly enjoying the embrace. When she must finally break away, she asks softly to his face. "So I reckon we can really start courting now..?"

Then there's the fishermen with no tact. Regardless of rumors, one barks out. "Eh! You kids an' yer canoodling! Git indoors before it gets dark out, theres murderers out there!" Barks one. But the other, the one who liked to watch:

"Go git 'er, tiger! Ayuh huh!"

God Bless Dirty Old Men.

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