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 Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2013 7:47 pm
When she woke up from her reverie, three days had passed. It wasn't to say Stormy had somehow regressed into her mind so much that time didn't have meaning for a while--no, she had been aware of the rise and fall of the sun and moon. She just hadn't cared past that point. Nothing in particular had brought her out of this spell that she was aware of: her stomach had growled a while back (she wasn't sure when exactly), but that had passed; water came in a bottle near her, easy to grasp and inconsequential otherwise; bathroom journies had been like dreams, experienced and then forgotten soon after the fact.
The only solid things to her had been her books: the journal she kept at her side filled with God only knew what she'd decided to write down (it was all a haze), the Brothers Grimm Fairytale collection on her other side with its built-in bookmark placed somewhere in the middle, and most importantly the Book of Pride that sat in her lap. There might have been an impression in her legs at this point from how long and often she placed it there. It spoke to her in whispers she didn't understand, but the emotions they conveyed were soothing: ego, confidence, pride. Things she desperately needed but could never get enough of.
The book had fallen closed during her last doze; maybe it was the silence that had in fact pulled her back to reality, the almost deafening lack of people. After the party, Stormy had needed to get away. Too much noise, too much socializing . . . Too much alcohol and too many bugs. Always the bugs. The silence was welcoming then: now it reminded her of how isolated she felt at the end of the day.
Unwilling to leave her room, she fiddled in her pockets for her phone and turned it on. There was a message from Evan dated a day ago (or at least, she was sure it was a day) which was curious. Had the offer been genuine or just a means to get her attention? She supposed she'd never know now . . .
At any rate, it was time to get back to the real world. That didn't mean she had to do so quickly, though. Scrolling through names, she typed out a message with a yawn.
kurotomato Text to Gale:Awake now. Thanks for taking me back to my room after the party btw.
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Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2013 9:08 pm
His mind kept saying stupid stupid stupid over and over again while Jinhai kept reminding him that it was the normal thing to do.
It's only normal if you're a regular teenage boy going to school every day. I'm an adolescent who hunts monsters on an island in the Bermuda Triangle. Something tells me that's not exactly "normal," Ginny, no matter how you try to spin it.
The dragon's voice was consoling. << Because in spite of that all, you're still human. You may have done some irresponsible things, kid, but being stupid is most definitely not one of them. You forget - I've been in your head for a long time now, and have never known you to be downright stupid. A little careless, maybe, but stupid? >>
Jinhai made a soft sound of amusement mixed with affection. << You're a good guy, Gale. Just remember that. >>
...thanks, Ginny.
But while he very much appreciated his partner's support, there was still the pressing matter of both Stormy (and her continued silence going on almost three days now) and the fact that he, Gale, had managed to get himself into a load of trouble with Jack without having intended to do so in the first place.
Still, when the text came, and he saw who it was from, Gale hesitated. He wanted to see her desperately, but although he didn't regret what had happened with Jack, he knew that Stormy would not be pleased about it - and that alone made him feel ashamed of himself. Regardless of his good intentions, he did not particularly want to admit that he'd done something that she would most likely find terrible.
The road to hell was not paved with bad intentions, after all.
Still, Gale pushed himself to his feet and left his house, making his way across the quad towards the dormitory building he'd so long ago moved out of. A part of him missed the sanctuary, but the other part of him - a stronger part - relished the alone time, the satisfaction of how he'd gotten his house in the first place.
When he arrived at Stormy's door, his knock was hesitant.
"Stormy, it's...it's me."
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Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2013 10:16 pm
It was a little curious not to get a response, but she had to remind herself that it was silly to be impatient after going dark for that long. The world here was not like the world she held within; it didn't go at her pace.
Which was why she froze at the sound of his voice.
No no no no no no--
She wasn't ready, not by a long shot. Not physically (most likely greasy hair, not showered, no make up, something sour in her mouth), not mentally (Thane was of course opposed, and her thoughts were still struggling to be pieced together), not emotionally (she had no idea what she was even supposed to be feeling at the moment beyond drowsy and stiff from sitting). No, wait, now she knew what to feel: guilty for having the immediate thought to keep him out.
Stormy whined to herself and ran a hand through her hair, cursing herself; it wasn't too bad, but she felt it was still not presentable, not in comparison to what she normally did before going out. With Nevada as a roommate she had put more effort into not looking like a slob, but alone she grew terribly lazy . . . Especially given three days to herself like this.
It didn't really help that her floor was strewn with random objects and papers and books, doodles and drabbles, half-finished thoughts for later. She didn't have time to attend to everything, so she had to settle for just the one.
xkurotomato Text to Gale:Give me a minute please
She stared at herself critically in the mirror. Messy, but do-able. There was a hollowness around her eyes that reminded her she didn't have the time to hide her horrible sleeping habits. Sighing quietly, Stormy tugged the hood over her head and approached the door.
She tried to ignore the bad feeling she got the closer she came. That was just the antisocial side talking. It was just like waking her up after a good long nap, where she was grumbly and reluctant at first.
Hesitating for another moment, she turned the knob and prayed she looked relatively normal--or at least normal in the domain of her Stormy Crazy, as Nevada put it. "Hello, sunshine~" she greeted with a gentle smile. "What's up?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 9:36 am
He stood there at her doorway and waited patiently for her to finish doing whatever it was that she was doing, absently tugging at the sleeve of the dove gray peacoat he'd pulled on over his clothes before leaving. Perhaps arriving uninvited and unannounced was probably a bad idea, but Gale had never quite been able to settle for conversing over texts and phone messages. Things should be done in person, especially when it was something as mentally exhausting and serious as what had been happening over the past few days.
Still, a part of him was slightly concerned that she didn't want to see him, especially since the text she'd sent him was quiet and a little stiff, as though she wasn't quite sure what to say to him. He knew he'd been an idiot, going off on Jack like that during the basement incident and essentially pushing her to the side in favor of his pride, but that part of him, the teenage boy part of him had wanted desperately to be stronger than he actually was - and that meant that he had acted irrationally.
Gale was relieved when he heard footsteps a few moments later, and then the click of the door as it swung open, revealing Stormy in a pale yellow hoodie and dark circles beneath her eyes. She was smiling, at least, which was nice, but he couldn't help but wonder how much longer she was going to be smiling once he confessed what he'd done.
"Hey," he said, leaning down to press a light kiss to her lips in greeting. "How are you feeling? Better, I hope." Straightening, he let himself look down at her for just a moment longer, as though memorizing her face, her dark eyes, the way she held herself. A small sigh escaped his throat.
"I, ah...need to tell you something," he said, and stepped past her into the room, hands tucked deep into the pockets of his coat. At first he said nothing at all, merely focused on a spot on the floor as though contemplating it, and then he took a small breath, closing his eyes briefly. He turned his head to look at her.
"I got into a fight with Jack."
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Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 10:24 am
She was staring a bit herself. Let it never be said that Gale didn't know how to dress well. She wanted to reach out and touch his coat, feel the fabric, fiddle with the buttons, steal it away to wear for a moment. Guys always had such nice clothes...It was a funny thing to focus on, but it was easier than looking at Gale himself. She still felt a lingering sense of regret for letting him see her act out on Halloween.
Stormy almost forgot he was speaking and blinked back to reality, bobbing her head after returning the kiss. "Better than before." Sort of. Better overall, though? She wasn't sure. But she would strive to improve, that much she could promise herself.
She meant to ask how he had been, but Gale continued before she opened her mouth. The ball of anxiety came back at those words, enough so that she was stuck in her position for a moment; like her body had forgot to move in short bursts here and there. Swallowing, she closed the door with the softest of clicks and turned to face him, gazing at him while he fixed his own on the floor. Could he read anything of hers still strewn on the ground? The very idea made her even more anxious, made her want to turn into a whirlwind and hide her thoughts away.
And she grew more so when he revealed he had gotten into a fight with the one person she had hoped he would avoid. But then again, that was inevitable; the party had proved Jack couldn't play nice, and he was nothing if not persistent...Her hands hid inside the long sleeves, gripping them from within.
"What sort of fight?" Stormy asked with a carefully neutral expression.
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Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 1:51 pm
He dropped his gaze from her because looking at her was hard, his stomach twisting with anxiety and shame. Gale fiddled with the sleeve of his coat again, absently smoothing a finger over one of the little black buttons. He knew she wasn't going to be pleased with him, which made things all the more worse, but at the very least - unlike what Jack had thought - he wasn't about to hide it from her, and had never had the intention of hiding it from her.
"A bad one," he said quietly, still conversing with the floor, or maybe it was wall now, since he'd lifted his gaze just a fraction, head still bowed. "It wasn't intentional," Gale added, after a moment. "I had gone to the training fields to...to clear my head a bit, and he was there."
Jack's smirking face swam in front of him again, and Gale exhaled a short breath, trying to ignore it, trying not to show that what he'd said had gotten to him, no matter how hard and how long he tried to pretend that it hadn't.
"I shot him a few times," Gale continued, in a quiet, neutral sort of voice, almost as though he were reading from a script. "He tried to defend himself, but he's still only a trainee, and I have more experience, so I got a little...carried away. He's perfectly fine, I just..."
He wasn't sure how to say it. "He said some things," Gale murmured softly. "About you."
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Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 2:33 pm
A bad one. Her chest tightened with dread. That alone would have been enough, but the fact that Gale couldn't look at her...It set off more alarm bells. The way his eyes wandered around her room, the way his affect turned flat the more he spoke, all of it worried her. And it wasn't an irrational fear this time: it wasn't a mission he could easily navigate, it was dealing with someone who had so much bitterness in his heart that his skin was probably poisonous by now--a toxic presence that spread through contact.
A part of her was almost disappointed Gale hadn't roughed him up more. Sometimes Stormy had wondered if violence communicated more than words with Jack, though actually enacting it had usually been out of her league. Here, though...She took more pleasure in the image of shooting her ex than she ought have.
Fiddling with her sleeves a little more, she gestured towards her bed and the desk's chair for a seat if he wanted, though she herself was quite content to stay standing after hours of being on the ground. She didn't want to ask but knew she had to; it made no difference now that Gale had been witness, so she might as well. "What sorts of things?" came her quiet voice, her gaze not wavering from him. It didn't judge or assume, but it was a saddened look, because it seemed that Jack wasn't capable of even being civilized when it suited him.
But on the inside, fear began to rise. Why couldn't he look at her...?
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Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 3:54 pm
Now that he'd mentioned it, Gale wasn't certain he wanted to say exactly what it was that Jack had said about Stormy. In fact, the crude, disgusting words made him feel nauseated with just thinking them, and Gale pushed them aside, drowned them in the back of his thoughts so that they could not rise again.
He didn't sit down, mostly because he needed to stay vertical. If he sat down, he'd sink into the depression, into the darkness he was trying so desperately to tamper down. Staying upright meant that he could at least keep his mind a little clearer, even if it was just a little.
Gale exhaled a weary sigh. "He reminded me of everything that he knew about you that I didn't." His gaze slid sideways towards her, his face impassive, but there was a flash of pain behind his eyes that even his most guarded expression couldn't quite cover entirely. "That you used to be called Ursula the Sea Witch as a kid. That you used to imagine your own funeral. That you sleep..."
His voice broke, just the slightest, but Gale cleared his throat and continued. "That you sleep curled up and sometimes imagine your mother's with you."
It killed him to know that there was an entire past of hers that he wasn't aware of, that he had no idea of. What he knew was right here and right now, this life that they had been given on the island and that was it. In spite of his bravado, he couldn't claim to know Stormy better than Jack because it was a lie; he really didn't know her better than Jack, and each thought that came with that realization was painful.
"He said that you..." He couldn't say it. Gale closed his eyes briefly, turning away from her again. "Well, he used cruder words that I would prefer not to repeat, but something about you not being a 'maiden' anymore."
His tone was not judgmental; he did not judge her for that, or for doing those sorts of things with Jack because, after all, they had been dating, and that was what people who dated did. What he hated was the fact that Jack had thrown it in his face as an insult, slapping it alongside the rest of his taunts and jeers.
He'd moved without realizing it, standing behind the desk chair now, his fingers curling over the back of it as though he had needed something to hold to keep himself from collapsing. Gale's grip tightened, his knuckles turning white beneath the gray knit gloves he was wearing.
"I don't pretend to know what I'm doing," he said softly. "Or to pretend that I'm some sort of saint, because I'm really not. I'm just a seventeen year old, stupid teenager who does stupid things. I'm not perfect, or saintlike, or special, or accomplished, or anything at all. I'm just here."
It was not a bitter tone, but rather a resigned one, as though he were just speaking the straight facts without preamble, without exaggeration. Gale tilted his head down, his hair falling alongside his face, and took a small breath to steady himself.
"I'm just Gale, and that's really all I'll ever be."
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Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 4:37 pm
Her heart start beating far too loudly. Th-thump. Th-thump. Words, like blood, pushed out with every beat in a rush to clarify and validate.
Th-thump. Sea witch. "Truth." Th-thump. Funeral. "Truth."
Th-thump. Mother. Th-thump th-thump. "Truth," she said again in a thicker voice.
Th-thump th-thump th-thump maiden. Th-thump. Maiden. Th-thump. Not a maiden. Th-thump. Her eyes fell closed as she moved, her fists tightening beneath her sleeves, her face contorting with pain. "H-Half-true," she said so softly, she almost didn't think it had come out.
Th-thump th-thump th-thump. She kept swallowing and breathing but the knot wouldn't come undone. It just kept growing larger and larger, thicker, coarser--not even the Gordian knot could compare. The rest of Gale's words got lost in the roar, thumpthumpthump, a flood of emotion overcoming her. Stormy began trembling despite the hoodie covering her.
That wasn't fair. That wasn't fair. None of that had come up for a reason, but of course, of course, Jack had brought them up just to piss Gale off (and probably her by proxy). Those were things she had confided to him in her vulnerable moments...Things that had happened that he gave no context or explanation towards, twisted just right for his purposes.
He'd just given it away like they meant nothing to him, for the sake of, what? Emotional leverage? Feelings of superiority because he had come first? Stormy grew sick the more she thought about it until her stomach was churning like it had Halloween night. They had been things meant to stay secret--but maybe promises no longer mattered to Jack.
Shame, fear, regret, indignation, teary, vengeful: her chest felt ready to explode. She shouldn't have expected anything less, but somehow--somehow Stormy thought he would have wanted that second chance like Finn had. It was so typical of her, to keep believing kindness could change anyone for the better. Jack was her eternal punishment for her hubris.
But then she remembered. She remembered how defeated Gale had looked after the tournament, how he had thought so little of himself while fighting the Titan, how he looked as forlorn near her chair as he had then. I'm not good enough for you, he had said.
Something snapped within her: it was the size of a rubber band with the energy of a bomb.
It started slow. Stepping forward, Stormy bent down and began to seemingly collect her papers from the ground, searching for something under the mess. When it became clear she had no interest in cleaning and was just looking for something in particular, she had found it: her Swiss Army Knife she had found on the beach.
Flick. The knife flipped out and she tested its edge. Sharp enough still, thankfully. Remembering the Book of Pride, she called it back and watched it desummon in a small burst of gold light.
"I'll be right back," she said, and then abruptly headed towards the door, expressionless but with a foreign glint in her eyes.
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Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 5:29 pm
His mind could not seem to make itself up.
A part of him wanted to simply curl up on his side in his own room, make himself oblivious to the rest of the world, push away all of the thoughts and feelings and think about nothing at all except sleep.
But another part of him wanted to rage and scream and throw things across the room, to grab the chair he was currently holding onto and slam it against the floor, crack it and break it until it shattered into pieces beneath his feet, collected in broken splinters and metal on the ground.
He did neither of these things. Instead, Gale stood there with his back to her, his hands still holding onto that chair because doing anything else was just running away. And if he was anything, if he was anything at all it was not a coward and he did not run away from things.
Something moved behind him. Gale shifted, turning around, and caught sight of something silver in Stormy's hand - something sharp - and he suddenly felt a rush of stunned horror when he realized just exactly it was.
"Stop - "
He was running across the floor without having even realized he'd moved. Gale's hand reached over her, slamming into the door to prevent it from opening, while his other curled around her wrist in a tight, grasp, his chest pressing against her back.
"Stop," he said, and his voice was thick. "What are you doing? What are you doing?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 5:53 pm
The door slammed closed with enough force that she should have backed off from the noise like she always did. Always backed off, always stepped back, turned tail, doubted herself. In this, for once, she felt so very sure of what to do: she wanted to hurt him. Was that so wrong?
The door was closed, but that could be fixed, just one motion, one flick of the wrist, just one more step--
Stop.
She didn't until he caught her wrist and was at her back, mid-stride. She could still see the glint of the knife at the corner of her eye like a silver grin.
"I've done it already," she muttered to the door. "I've done it once in another world. I can work my way to it here. But I won't use scissors, they're too clean, too neat, just like him." She tugged at Gale's grasp. "It was self-defense then and it's self-defense now. In your defense, in my family's defense. He's weaker here. He's weaker for once."
She stared at the door long and hard, willing it to open for her.
"Please let me go," she said to Gale in a far too polite tone.
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Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 6:20 pm
He didn't respond to the I've already done it comment, instead pushing it out of his head and reminding himself that that world she had been in wasn't necessarily real, didn't equate to what she was intending to do right now, with this knife, to Jack.
"It's not the same - " His fingers tightened around hers. "Stormy, it's not the same - "
It was hard to breathe. Gale's hand was pushing so hard against the door the tips of his fingers were white, and his chest felt too tight to allow air in properly. "He's weak," he agreed, and closed his eyes, shaking his head a little. "He is, but you are not."
He dropped his hands both from the door and from her wrist, and both arms came around Stormy's waist, hugging her from behind, Gale's face pressed into her hair. His fingers were trembling - his shoulders too - but he stood there and refused to move, his eyes still shut.
"You're not mine," he said. "You're not mine because you're nobody's, you're your own person, and maybe if this were different I would do something else. But I can't let you go. Not this time."
His arms tightened, just a little, and his voice broke slightly. "You have no idea how much I want to hurt him, how much I want him to realize that he is the exact kind of person that I wish would just descend into hell, but you can't."
His head dropped to her shoulder. "I'm not telling you what you can and can't do, but please for the love of everything, Stormy, I am begging you not to do this."
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Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 6:52 pm
< < Indeed, it is not the same. This time, you can take his miserable life into your hands. > > Thane's voice descended upon her like a shadow, bones clattering in her head as his jaws snapped. < < If you know something will become an issue, eradicate it before it festers. You do not allow weeds to grow in the hopes that they will become something else with time. > >
Her hands were shaking but her feet remained planted. Behind the thrill of control was the fear that she was losing herself to an inner madness all humans had inside. Even with Gale's solid presence holding her, she trembled and felt cold and conflicting, not belonging to anyone at all, least of all herself (whoever that was).
Don't let go, she'd once said. Would he hold true to that now?
"Why not?" she challenged, still staring at the door, pain leaking into her tone. "He's taken enough from me. Why can't I take something back? Why do I-I have to take the high road when he'll just . . ." She trailed away, clenching her jaw. "Would you think less of me if I did?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 7:05 pm
He felt as though bits and pieces of him were breaking away, flaking away into nothingness. Why was it so hard for things to just be simple? Why couldn't they have met in a different place, a different time, somewhere that they could hold hands and just be together without the constant threat of everything hanging over their heads?
Jinhai's voice was very soft inside of his head.
<< You chose this life. >>
I know I did.
Gale buried his face in Stormy's hair, his arms still tight around her stomach. They stood there, at an impasse, and he could feel her body trembling, and the pain in her voice made him feel pain as well. "You already know the answer to that question," he said through gritted teeth. "You know what the answer to that is without having to ask it."
Breaking breaking breaking -
"You may wind up taking something away from him, but at what cost?" he asked, his voice raw. "I don't want to see you in the same darkness that he's already in."
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Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 7:30 pm
Th-thump th-thump th-thump.
What am I doing?
< < You are at the crossroads. Make your choice: power, or prudence. > >
She hated making choices. Sitting on the fence was more perilous, but at least you could see everything.
The days she wished she had been able to stand up to Jack were innumerable. The days on which she regretted her actions were just as vast, spanning what ended up being an unhealthy several years of life. Wasted.
< < That is what he is, an utter waste. > >
He shouldn't be here. She'd had enough training, she had her artifact--she could take him down right now, make it look like he had perished during a titan run. Or maybe leave his body for the mermaids to feast in the sea. A complete and utter, if tragic, accident.
< < No-one would miss him. > >
But was it worth feeling like her hands would never be clean of him? Even in death, Jack would be a stain on her she could never get rid of: more than a memory, less than a ghost. He would haunt her in her everlasting guilt, because in the end Stormy wasn't capable of murder.
At least, not as she was right now.
After being deathly quiet for too long, a growl of a sob left her, just a sharp intake of breath, of frustration and acceptance. Without warning the Swiss Army Knife was flung at the door, the knife embedding into the wood several inches above her head. Stormy watched it vibrate in place for a second, Gale's raw voice lingering in her ears.
When her heart started to ache, she remembered she had arms and clutched at his where they laid around her stomach, pressing them tighter to her. "What if I'm already there?" she asked fearfully, her voice cracking as she shut her eyes.
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