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 Posted: Sat May 03, 2014 11:23 pm
She didn't indulge the joke, though she understood Gale's intent; if there had been room for more of it, Storm would have felt guilty about her behavior and how she continued to sag without reason. Instead she continued to mindlessly trace shapes into his skin. They were beginning to morph into letters, but they weren't quite clear, seeming more loops and curves than a genuine attempt to communicate, more interested in simply touching than using it for anything more.
There wasn't quite a word to describe the feeling of skin brushing against skin anyway, but her hands (all of her skin, to be honest) were more sensitive in the tactile department than most. Understanding things through them became an understated but integral part of her interactions with the world. Picking up, stroking, poking, gripped in a need to feel what made things the way they were: what sort of soft was it, what was blunt and what was sharp, what had patches where and why, what area caught more punishment, what was missing and what was there. Her own burns and scratches, while mostly healed over, still made the expanses of her arms uneven; on more than one occasion Stormy, fascinated by the differences in texture and color (the burns being darker, the scratches lighter, than her skin tone), had scanned them all with her hand, comparing and remembering what had caused each. On her side like this, for instance, the jagged scar left by Nevada was partially visibly where her neck and shoulder met; that had been the one that plagued her the most recently, next to the invisible bugs and the itchy head. Her own hands, once soft as a doll's, had over the year and a half become smoothed over by small calluses. There was a history in every body, markers and telltale signs of what had or had not happened and by the passage of time's kindness or cruelty.
One day, she might have the courage to ask Gale if she could learn more about him this way: simply running her hands anywhere and anywhere until she had absorbed everything there was to know and more. But his hands were just fine for now. More than just fine. They were the first life link, the simplest and most common way to communicate, through tugs and squeezes and idle tracing and mere offers, barometers of emotional pressure in their own right. She'd known if she didn't reach out, it might have given him utter despair believing that nothing at all could help.
(For a few moments, it was tempting to let the distance remain. She was not in the right state of mind at all.)
But just because she had bridged the gap didn't mean she was alright either. Stormy's movements were still burdened and listless, her need to occupy her starving nerves with sensory information as much an instinct as it was a conscious decision. The tears had stopped, but she could feel them behind her eyes, eager and ready to spring another leak.
But she was trying. This was the best she had.
"Anyone can have that power," Stormy mumbled, her eyes falling closed again tiredly. He looked far too hopeful even when mixed with other emotions; she wasn't sure she could acknowledge its existence without somehow being even more drained, knowing she was just a few steps from breaking that too. "Just need the right words." She didn't care to hear about being a creator when the only things under her name were temporary or insignificant, or otherwise useless for Deus work; she most certainly didn't want to hear it when all she could think about was the self-destruction slowly unfolding in her and the potential it had outside of her.
"Think you found yours. Think I lost mine." Her hand began to retreat back to the curled safety of her body, overloaded quickly with sensory input. "But s'okay. You've needed words for a while."
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Posted: Sun May 04, 2014 9:17 am
The hopefulness had been there, galling him, but Stormy's retreat; the way she folded into herself, closed her eyes, stopped the tracing of shapes and letters on his hand and pulled her own back, were successful in slapping the hope right back out of Gale, and out of his eyes. He drew in a breath, careful to not let it show, careful to not overreact, and instead just gave Stormy a quiet look of contemplation.
"Not everyone," he corrected gently. "What you have is special. You have a gift, and you don't even realize how beautiful or how powerful it is."
He didn't reach for her hand again, though he wanted to desperately. Instead Gale lifted his own and folded them into his lap, twining his fingers together and exhaling a long breath. Inside of his head, Jinhai made a soft noise; a murmur of encouragement, and Gale sent him a thankful smile mentally, though his outward expression remained rather stoic and thoughtful.
"I found a few words, yes," said Gale slowly, and absently twisted the ring on his hand, the cool metal a familiar sensation against his skin. "Not all of them. It's hard to find the right words sometimes, and it's hard to remember them all."
He turned his head to look at her, at her terribly worn out self, every gesture and every movement practically dripping with exhaustion, listlessness, and despondency. It was horribly sad to look at, though the feeling Gale had in his voice was not pity, nor was it patronizing.
"You'll find yours again," he said quietly. "I'll help you, if you want."
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Posted: Sun May 04, 2014 10:39 am
"To what end? Quote poetry at each other?" The bitterness was starting to leak out, lending her voice back for a moment. "Doesn't matter here. Words don't work. Arts don't matter except the art of war. They asked me to be a soldier, and I thought I could be, but I'm not. I just quote prose and poetry," Stormy softly scoffed. "That's no gift. That's a pointless habit of parroting the words of the dead. They don't matter here."
She pulled herself in tighter, hands curling around each other at her chest until she looked almost fetal in position. Sensory information was mitigated and divided between them, replacing one touch with another until Gale's imprint had been taken away, though not forgotten. Never quite forgotten.
"You might tell me it does, but I know it doesn't. Everything I am is a waste on that uniform. I can't fight. I can't defend others. I find trouble more than the sun finds us. I cry at the drop of a hat," and she showed it then as several more tears squeezed out from her closed eyes as she clawed at her inside, "My own weapon can kill me if the charge goes wrong, a-and he doesn't even care about me anyway. My own morals compromise themselves under stress--I've killed someone, I-I've killed them--and the only reason I'm alive is because better people save the day, and because I'm not such a big traitor that they care enough to k-kill me."
She had to stop and quell a sob before it came out, trembling momentarily.
"I-I helped fracture my own division," she whispered tightly, tucking her head in shame. "Lance knows that. He could kill me for that. He c-could kill me for not helping Nevada more, f-for letting her die. He--loved her more, I-I-I know that--" The tears flowed in earnest, the aches and wounds in her chest forcing her to collect shallow breaths before she suffocated under her own pressure.
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Posted: Sun May 04, 2014 10:42 pm
The bitterness in her voice was not missed; but rather than maintain his usual calm self (forced or otherwise), the effect it had was instantaneous. A terrible irritation spread across Gale's mind, his heart clenching in his chest as he stared down at Stormy, at her mouth forming the horrible words, each one stabbing, piercing through the silence like some of his bullets. She was curled into herself now, pressing herself so tightly against her own body that she looked similar to a snake curling in to hide itself from the rest of the world.
"Stop it," he said flatly, and it came out harsher than he had meant it, more filled with a mixture of hurt and anger than he had wanted it to. "Stop pushing me away, and stop disregarding everything that I have to say, and stop acting like you're the only one who should feel any pain here."
It wasn't that he had been close to Nevada, or even that he had known her well enough to mourn her properly. But it by no means lessened the way that he felt about her death, or the way that he knew others were feeling about her death. There was a heavy, oppressive feeling within the room, as though the walls were closing in, and Gale's fingers twisted, the ring feeling cold against his skin.
"The weight of the world is not on your shoulders," he said quietly, in a much more level tone, though there was still a slight sharp edge to it. He wasn't looking at her now, Gale staring off into the room, not quite focusing on anything in particular. "Also I realize that poetry and words and arts don't matter in the grand scheme of things, but telling me that they're useless invalidates not just me, but your own feelings as well - not to mention you basically just called me a cheap imitation," he added, though there wasn't any real anger or annoyance behind the words, Gale merely calmly pointing out a fact.
He shifted his legs, putting one ankle over the other.
"This is not a competition," said Gale softly. "about who loved Nevada more. That doesn't matter, and it never did. What matters is that you loved her at all. Just because Uncle Lance loved her by no means negates the fact that you loved her enough for two people, let alone just yourself."Ol-j-man cries because this tag was meant to be something else and then I started writing and this came out and idk sob
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Posted: Mon May 05, 2014 12:21 am
"Never said that," she murmured darkly. "I never said no-one else could, that would be crazy. But suddenly I can't?"
Strangely, it wasn't Gale's sharp tone that irked her, but the fact that he felt like pointing out what Ian already had to her. He was missing the point, or at least seemed to, by focusing on the part about Nevada rather than understanding that her litany of events were as much the things tearing her down as much as they were responsible for her being, that it wasn't just "the weight of the world" she suddenly had taken on (which she took offense to anyway, him merely lobbing all of that together into a mixture that wasn't the sum of its parts, that didn't account for everything)--it wasn't that, but her world in its entirety going off axis, spinning out of control with no end in sight towards its doom. Her dormant temper stirred underneath the heavy layers of sadness. But she refused to do the same thing she had with Evan and lose control. No-one would be taking her anger from her, too, not after taking happiness and hope; no-one would get subjugated to even more of her madness if she could help it, least of all Gale. Just had to keep it in.
"If you still think this is just about Nevada, then you're the one who's disregarding," she said tartly nevertheless. "You're the one not listening."
(Just have to keep it in.)
The world was not on her shoulders, but the weight was still there. That was the point: that every move and every word of hers just brought her down more, that every decision she made, good or ill, always came back and bit her. Stormy's actions had piled up until it was worse than a train wreck, and it had been a long time coming according to her little list. The only reason she hadn't broken down as badly as this before was because of either the practically indomitable spirit of (sometimes blind) optimism, or because she had found something to escape in. Nevada's death had been different in that by the time it hit her, she had no energy to go anywhere--nor did the manner and circumstances of her death help.
He hadn't mentioned being related to Lance, though then again she probably ought to have remembered thanks to the New Years world. There was a lot Stormy was forgetting, apparently. The softest, oddest noise left her, a laugh that wasn't fully realized. So she was doomed to hurt that whole family, then. Daughter, father, and nephew.
What a joke.
"You sound angry," Storm told him in a suddenly colorless voice. Her hands had unfurled somewhere in the midst of her thoughts, grasping at each side of her hat and tugging it down until it pressed over her eyes and ears and the fabric began to strain. "You should leave and clear your head, I think."
kuroopu oh god I hope this makes sense I hate phone posting and it's laaaaaaate
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Posted: Mon May 05, 2014 9:47 pm
He sat there beside her, an expression of anger mingled with hurt etched across his face, Gale doing everything to just keep from breaking, to keep from doing something stupid. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her, but it was the opposite - she was hurting him, and she knew it, he knew she did. But in spite of that, and in spite of his efforts to stay close to her, she was pushing him away at every opportunity she had, choosing not to want to be with him or let him take some of the weight off of her shoulders.
It was deliberate, this gap between them, and that knowledge was painful.
"Yes," said Gale abruptly, and he slid his legs off the bed, pushing himself to stand beside it instead and look down at her, his cheeks flushed with the emotions he was having less and less success holding back. "Yes, I'm angry."
<< Gale... >>
His chest throbbed and his heart ached. He felt like he was splitting in two.
"All I've ever done is try to make sure you're happy," he said, once he started talking, it was like he couldn't stop. "All I've ever done is try and be there for you when you needed me, and even when you didn't. I've stood beside you when everything was falling apart, I've talked you through things, I've held your hand, and I've spent the past eight months falling in love with you."
He shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes. "You have no right to tell me how to feel, just like I don't have a right to tell you how to feel. Maybe I've been going about this all wrong, maybe what I'm doing isn't the way to get through to you, to bridge this space between us, but at least I'm trying."
Gale's voice broke slightly, though he wasn't crying. His hands had balled into fists at his sides. "At least," he snapped, "I'm trying. I'm making an effort, and you're just lying here trying to make it all go away. Stormy, things don't go away just because you want them to, and lying here suffocating in your own grief and sorrow and anger and everything else won't change what's happened."
He stopped and reeled in a breath, his mind working furiously.
"Get up," he said suddenly. "Get up, and come with me. I want to take you somewhere."Ol-j-man cries a lot what am I even writing
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Posted: Mon May 05, 2014 11:27 pm
Blinded by her hat, Stormy did not watch his slow slip of control. But she could hear it, oh, she could take a twisted pleasure in hearing it. Misery loved company; misery enjoyed creating company. Her pain inspired pain in Gale, and in turn his anger fed the slow-burn of hers, the coals of which she invited--anything was better than the numbness of absolute sorrow, even if it was childish and hurtful. The only recourses she had to her beyond that were out of grasp anyway, and certainly out of the question with Gale in the room.
"Good," she said with a hint of grim satisfaction. "You should be."
< < You need help. > > Thane, who hadn't spoken for a while, made himself plain amidst her dark thoughts. And another bit of laughter died within her at the idea of him suggesting it, after so long being told that relying on others was a weakness. Maybe he was right, after all. She didn't know how to do it right without hurting herself or others at any rate.
He was off the bed and angry. A little more pushing might set him adrift. Or maybe Gale was like her who, for all of her listlessness, wasn't a completely hopeless case, who wouldn't let go even if it was pulling him down in the water, who would fight to keep them afloat even if it was trecherous, and who would still call it love even if she drowned him.
Love. The very word threatened to shatter what she was barely keeping together. It, too, was something Stormy knew nothing about at all, not really. Not the right kinds.
She said nothing at first, making no attempt to argue that she was trying in her own way, however convoluted and frustrating it was to him, that being there at all was her recognizing that she was sinking, that letting him into the room and talking were things that weren't much on the outside but took a great deal of energy to handle, that she was running on fumes as it was but was pushing herself because it was him, because some small part of her deep down was trying to break past the mold and might as well have been beating her head against a brick wall, that she was restraining herself to just the occassional bitter word because as much as she thought herself ready to give it all up, her will's grip remained as iron because she could not, would not engage those powerful urges, things that gave only momentary release from lashing out and came back worse than before soon afterwards--she said nothing at all, instead mulling over Gale's waspish words as she let the beanie shrink back to its original place above her brows, and let the angry thoughts buzz in their little jar she set aside so many others.
Thane could rattle and shake them all he wanted to get them to break, but they weren't opening except of her accord.
"I know," she whispered weakly, gaze flickering briefly down at his fists. "I-I know that. I do. I know." But that didn't mean she could stop herself: logic was not the ruling factor in her world. She could know it, but she could not feel it.
Stormy stared right through Gale for an extra few moments, deliberating. Then, with quiet resignation, she forced herself to sit up and straightened her curled limbs, joints popping one after another. Absently, she scratched under the beanie, then at her arms. Only then did she make her way to the edge of the bed and get up, slow and careful in case she grew light-headed; tea had been the only thing in her stomach for God only knew how long, but the ham and cheese sandwich still was more unappetizing than anything else.
She didn't want to leave. Almost every fiber of her being was yelling at her to get under the covers and hide away, but there she was on her feet. She looked at Gale the same way she she looked to superior officers for orders, her tired eyes still red and puffy from before. Her shoulders and posture still slumped, and her hands fell at her sides to clutch at the corner of her shirt or the band of her pants, fidgeting without the cover of coat pockets to hide.
Her eyes kept falling to check on those fists.
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Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 6:51 am
He had no idea if his childish outburst would make her angry or if it would just make her retreat further into the shell that she'd built around herself, and maybe that was the whole problem - that he didn't know anymore how she would react. Stormy was impulsive and bright and emotional on a normal basis, but there had been times when Gale had understood that impulsiveness and that brightness; had encouraged it and followed it and welcomed it into his heart, because that was the Stormy he knew and had fallen in love with.
This Stormy he still loved, because he loved all of her, but it was like the light had dimmed to nothing more than a vague flicker of a glow, dulled and nearly out. She had retreated within herself, unwilling to climb over the wall she had built to protect her heart and her mind, and Gale couldn't reach the top of it, and he couldn't break it down.
He was being selfish, he knew it, and greedy.
He was being self-centered. This was not about him stop making it about you, Gale Arthur Gentry.
(He felt as though they were splintering apart, ripping apart at the seams.)
To be honest, Gale didn't think she would follow him. He stood there beside her bed, expecting either a bitter comment about how he wasn't respecting her space or her privacy anymore (he wasn't, and he hated himself for it because he wasn't bloody Jack for Pete's sake) or for her to roll over and go back to that dream-like state that he suspected she went to without actually sleeping.
But her words were soft and her voice barely there, and the strange quietness of it threw him off, Gale blinking in bemusement. And then - and then - she had pushed herself upwards, terribly slow and terribly sad, but she was vertical, and she was standing next to him and though she wasn't quite looking at him the way she used to, it was something.
Gale didn't say anything at all, and didn't take her hand for fear of her thinking he was invading her space again, but he gestured for her to follow him, down the stairs and out the door of the little yellow house. He wasn't entirely certain that she actually would follow him, but his heart ached for it, trying to remain positive.
He didn't stop walking until he'd reached their destination - the old, crumbling, decrepit schoolhouse, the door of which was falling off its hinges, splintered and mostly just a few boards held together. Gale stepped over the threshold and led the way down a darkened hallway, peering into various rooms. It was a small building, with only one main room and about five or six side classrooms that he assumed had once been used for miscellaneous private lessons, so it didn't take him long to find what he was looking for.
"Here," said Gale, and he still hadn't turned around to see if she was actually following him. He wrapped his hands around the knob of a certain door and pushed hard. It creaked and groaned and for a moment he thought it wouldn't open; but then, with a small screech of old wood scraping across a floor, the door was forced open, and Gale stepped inside, lifting his hand to his face and wrinkling his nose a little.
Layers of dust coated nearly everything, thick and heavy, and the windows were mostly smashed, the floor not quite even as he stepped across it. There were no desks in this particular room, just a faded and worn carpet that looked as though it might have been dark green at one point but had since turned a rather lackluster shade of mossy gray. Boxes lined the walls, a few things peeking out from them, but it was what was wedged in the corner of the room that Gale was looking for.
A piano. Not a grand, like the one Gale had once had in house (that had sat mostly unused, since Gale and Leslie had not exactly been prime musicians, in spite of their mother's attempts at teaching them), but a baby grand, shoved forgotten between a cabinet with old, yellowed music books and what had once been a chalkboard, but that now had a massive crack down the middle of it.
"Jerry told me about it," said Gale, as he made his way towards the instrument. "He mentioned that this schoolhouse had once had a music room, so I thought that I could take a chance and see if it had a piano. It's probably really out of tune," he added, rubbing a hand across the smooth wooden surface, and layers of dust expelled from beneath his fingers. "But at least it's still standing."Ol-j-man hi I stole your idea bye cries a little
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Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 10:21 am
She followed without a word, the only thoughts in her mind devoted to calculating whether leaving the house was worth it or not. Every step was an additional number to crunch into the equation, measuring her energy, watching her distance, dully wondering where on Deus he'd want to take her at this point. Her body still itched to leave, but she continued after Gale nevertheless because she still trusted him, in spite of her behavior.
Stormy grew curious as they angled towards the town, her head tilting as she watched for signs of shadows grouping. It still hadn't clicked as they hit the school, though the dust certainly agitated her nose and eyes; she kept wiping at them and eventually just pressed her hands to her mouth and nose to act like a filter. This was a sad place to be: it evoked memories that weren't fraught with danger but were still depressing or vague in their own right. Strangers, bullies, shadows, the spells of silence that often overcame her. I think she should see someone.
Even when they hit the music room, it didn't hit her at first. Stormy scanned the piles of forgotten material, dusty and dull, and fell upon a lump of a shape she hadn't seen in over a year. Then it was broken down as she stepped closer: wood, stool, wood, legs, stand, ivories, flats, sharps, sheets, strings, hammers, pedals. Piano.
"Not a grand," she murmured on approach, moving to the other side from Gale. "But you don't have to be. None of us are." Pausing, she then reached down and gently tapped the high C: two notes clashed at the same time, causing her to flinch. It was in need of tuning and badly, assuming there weren't broken strings or anyhing else gunking up the works. It had wheels, though; at least travel would be easier.
"You'll be okay. This is a graveyard, but you aren't dead yet." Stormy was treating the piano like a wounded animal, speaking gently and running her hand to wipe dust off of it like she was stroking fur. There were hints of compassion that had been utterly missing before in her, a different kind of softness emerging: still laden with sadness, but at least able to focus on something other than herself.
Sniffling from the dust raised, she turned to Gale with a silent question: were they taking it with them, then?
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Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 9:13 pm
He was relieved to see that she had indeed followed him, though neither one of them had said a word to the other the entire trip over; and for a few moments, Gale thought she might not actually care for where he was bringing her, or if she'd even understand the implications of it in her exhausted state. It was a last attempt, a Hail Mary to try and get through to her, and maybe, just maybe, it would work.
He certainly hoped so.
The music room felt somewhat stifled, what with all of the dust and the boxes and the books and the instruments all crammed into one small place, but that didn't seem to stop Stormy from gravitating towards the piano almost as though she were entranced by it.
It wasn't much, but it was something. Inwardly, Gale breathed a sigh of relief, though outwardly he also winced at the off-key note, sliding his hands into the pockets of his slacks and taking a few steps to the side, away from the piano to give her space and more to examine a dusty box of what appeared to be recorders.
He caught Stormy's look and his expression softened a little.
"It's too big to take with us, at least now," he said. "It would take more than just the two of us to move that, but we can stay here as long as you'd like in the meantime."
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Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 9:40 pm
If it was possible for her expression to fall any further, then it did. Something in her eyes dimmed at the knowledge that the piano couldn't be taken with them just yet, that they'd eventually have to leave it behind in these dreary surroundings to collect dust again. Doing so for any more amount of time now was just depressing to know. Stormy gave the piano an experimental nudge to test its weight, reinforcing the notion of helplessness as the wheels gave a tiny squeak; there was no way she was in any state to be moving anything.
So it'd have to get left behind, then.
Her hand slid off the piano as she backed away, crossing her arms over her stomach and clutching elbows. Turning away from it and Gale, she glided to the other end of the room and pretended to be interested in a disheveled pile of mixed music sheets, sinking further into self-loathing because she wanted to cry over a stupid ******** broken instrument.
"There's nothing else here. We can go." No curiosity to shift through the boxes, no thought-provoking questions based on their surroundings. New Years wasn't something she wanted to think about: not the children that used to attend, not the fact that either here or somewhere else she had taken lessons and gone to school, not the fact that the towns even existed and that life used to thrive there in this life and in another--one where she had been infinitely better. Stormy rapidly blinked back tears and clenched her jaw.
"I-I'm not sure what you wanted from this. Sorry. But thanks for taking me anyway," she added in a tight voice.
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2014 10:13 pm
His face fell almost instantly.
In retrospect, he hadn't ever really been sure what he'd been trying to do. But he'd thought that maybe seeing a piano, seeing something that she loved and cherished and treated as a human might break her out of her shell; that she'd realize that living was just that - living - and that watching her go through this was painful, not just to him, but to her as well.
But Stormy had turned away from the piano. She had turned away from it, and she was folding her arms around herself, building the wall back up again brick by brick, and he couldn't breathe, couldn't even think properly.
He'd failed.
Every attempt he'd made at trying to get through to her fell like shattered glass around his feet; a constant reminder that nothing had worked, that no matter what he tried, what he said, what he did, what he didn't do; it didn't matter, not anymore.
She just didn't care anymore.
His vision blurred a little at the corners. Gale's cheeks felt hot with mingled humiliation and frustration.
"You don't mean that," he said, and shook his head. "You're not that grateful I brought you here, not really. You really just don't give a bloody hell about anything anymore, do you? Not yourself, not me, not anything."
His breath caught in his throat, making it difficult to speak. His fingers curled against his palms, digging into his skin and making his knuckles white, and half of him was screaming at him to shut up, that he was just making this worse by getting angry, that it wasn't about him and that he should just be patient and stand by her while she was falling apart -
- but the other half of him, the less rational side, was exhausted. Drained from hours spent worrying, days spent thinking every thought there was about Stormy and if he could help her, and the pain she must be in after losing Nevada. Every waking moment, his dreams tainted with blackness, and yet she stood in front of him, her eyes dull and her heart locked away so tightly he was no longer sure it could even be reached anymore.
He'd lost her.
He'd lost her, and there was no getting her back, not anymore.
Gale's shoulders sagged. He seemed utterly defeated.
"I just wanted you," he whispered in a hoarse tone, his voice raw, but he shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes, and a mask had taken place, just like Stormy's; inscrutable and flat and careful, Gale turning away from her, moving towards the door, his movements jerky and ungraceful, awkward and pained. He needed to get out of there before she could see the wetness in his eyes, the dampness that had started to fall down his face.
"I'm going home. The bedroom upstairs is still free to use whenever you like. I leave a spare key under the mat."
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2014 11:37 pm
She continued to stare down at the pile of sheet music as her own stomach digested itself, at first the only perceptible signs she was still aware at all being the slow burn of tears, the slight shake, and the tightening of her fingers on her now bony elbows, crushing the loose skin there, almost wishing she could just peel it all off. Or if nothing else, just pinch herself and wake up. It was a dream. It was just another vivid dream, a nightmare feeding off of almost everything she had feared would come to pass all at once, depression, isolation, passive-aggression, breaking--
"You really just don't give a bloody hell about anything anymore, do you?"
--broken.
A full body shiver went through her with violent speed. The liquefaction of her insides continued with a vengeance, until it felt like it might as well have been spilling from every pore as tears fell from her eyes then, until she vomited everything out like she had in Evan's room and tasted the sourness of the bile she had created. Even the blood in her veins seemed to be getting replaced or moved, as she couldn't feel her legs anymore, couldn't feel how they simply shook and then crumpled under her, barely heard the thud as she crumbled to the dusty floor like it was happening somewhere else and to someone else. Her head was light and her heart was heavy, and the room began to spin.
Everything in her screamed no, but not one word left her lips. Like storm winds they whipped about and howled, No no no no no no no no no NO NO NO NO--
But you deserve this, don't you. You wanted punishment, even.
She didn't see but rather heard Gale going for the door and assumed he would leave without further ado--and thus she began to crack open without restraint and without bothering to wait for him to make his exit since she doubted it would matter now.
Ugly, watery noises left her, things that she would have kept in check otherwise, and shook her body as she yanked her hat off and pressed her face into it; the material barely did anything to stifle the noise, nor did it suffocate her. Her torso eventually toppled stomach-first onto the floor, clutching at her bare head, neck, and face with a rabid sort of energy, nails digging into her skin and trying to leave marks that Thane's shield wouldn't allow, before one balled into a fist and struck the floor. Her forehead collided against the floor next and dazed her further, but the small burst of pain was nothing compared to the hole that was being gouged inside--the one she had made herself. When Nevada was still alive, Stormy had promised herself not to cry, not one single damn tear like she always did, because crying did nothing, crying just showed everyone you were a child, emotional, weak, and she wasn't weak, she had proved it, weeks and weeks of proof, all work and not one tear, not for her, not for those who suffered because of her, not even for Gale when she had confided her doubts, because they called her strong so she was supposed to be, she was supposed to be, but God she wasn't, she wasn't at all, the only things she had the strength for now were the things she could break. And, God, she'd done it, she'd broken him, the one thing she had swore never to do long before love had ever come and complicated things.
Words did not leave Stormy: only keens and wails and sobs that she would never have left unchecked before could be articulated because now she'd done it. She'd gone in like a surgeon and removed the last vestige of happiness in her life, and no amount of hollow acts and masks could stop her misery from filling every square inch of her body. It was worse than when Mami had died and it was worse than when Nevada had followed suit because they were ultimately out of her control: but this, this she was doing to herself, and now it seemed she couldn't stop it. She had unwittingly tested Gale's patience far too long and had taken it for granted while lost in her depression.
No No No--! For all of the things and people she had let go of in her life, he was someone she couldn't bear to lose. In her swirl of thoughts and pain and ebbing energy, that was a constant.
"Please." It sounded so foreign now in her strained, thick voice, and as she lifted her head Stormy wondered if she even looked recognizable anymore, her scalp closely shaven, her expression contorted by grief and fear and streaks of tears that collected some of the grime off the floor, her noises far too loud and far too open. But she had no pride, she never had; begging to her was nothing, even though it was selfish to want anything now. Her body continued to shake as did her arms as she barely kept her head propped up from the ground, extremely low blood sugar and emotion threatening to topple her at long last, but she managed to half-sob, half-hushedly plead, "Please, p-please, ple-ease--please--d-don't--" She kept biting back neverending sobs, her vision too blurry to initiate eye contact--if Gale would even deign to look at her now. If he was even still there.
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Posted: Fri May 09, 2014 9:46 am
The only reason he stopped at first was because he tripped, his foot catching on the corner of a cardboard box filled with dusty songbooks with the pages long turned yellow, and Gale stumbled, his knee slamming painfully into the floor. He made a mumbled curse, his vision still blurred, and swiped furiously at his eyes, hating the fact that he was not more rational about this, that he'd let his own stupid emotions push both of them over the edge. Maybe if he hadn't gotten angry, and he'd just been more patient, then she would still want him; then she would realize that he was still trying to just be there for her, not even make her do anything, but just be there to hold her hand if she needed, be someone to lean on if she wanted.
But she didn't. She didn't want any of it anymore.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried - maybe the time after New Year's, when he'd woken up from that dream and remembered that Clarice and Ben were not actually his adoptive parents, but that they were both dead and gone and not coming back. He remembered sitting in front of Ben's grave, his hands balled into fists in his lap, his eyes burning and his cheeks wet.
Or maybe it had been the time that he'd given up on Leslie, made a small grave marker for her, planted it lovingly beside the rows of plain white markers in the graveyard on Deus and told her that he loved her and that he would miss her always.
(Sometimes it felt like half of him was missing without Leslie, and that he was just a fragment of himself, though he always tried never to let this show, to move on and move forward and not ever have to think about it again.)
Either way, it had been a long time, and it had certainly not been here, where someone - Stormy - could see him; he had never cried in front of anyone before except for Candace, and that had been when he'd thought Bix was truly dead and gone, and she had held him and murmured reassuring words, her voice gentle as she stroked the hair back from his face.
He'd never cried in front of Stormy, not once, and maybe that was the problem. Bottling everything inside of him did no good, it never did, but he didn't know any other way of dealing with his own emotions than to just put on a calm face and move on, move forward.
Don't look back.
Here and now, in this dusty, decrepit room, he felt small and weak, unhelpful to the only person in his life that he would have done anything and everything for. Gale's fingers curled around the edge of a box and he was about to push himself vertical again, get out of here before Stormy would see his flushed and damp cheeks -
- and then he heard it; a soft thump, as though something had fallen.
At first he'd thought Stormy had collapsed or fainted or perhaps both, and he whipped around in a panic, his heart in his throat, blinking back the tears; but then he saw her, bent over on the grimy floor, her entire body shaking violently, terrible wailing sounds escaping her throat. They were watery, raw and unrestrained, and Gale's chest ached with the sound of it because it was so terribly sad. He could see now Stormy's shaven head, her pale fingers gripping her scalp, but although he had guessed already, the initial feeling was still a sense of shock: all of her beautiful red-brown curls that he loved sliding his fingers through were gone, replaced by a thin line of reddish brown, almost a buzz cut. The shock, however, melted away quickly, replaced by a quiet acceptance, Gale's shoulders sinking.
Please what? he wanted to know. Please don't leave? You haven't wanted me to stay before; you haven't wanted anything at all except to build more walls between us. There's a river, a raging river, a valley, a forge, a whole world between us now, and I stopped trying to cross it because you stopped wanting me to.
The words burned at the back of his throat, but he didn't say them, couldn't get them out. His own vision was blurred enough as it was, and he lifted a hand, digging the heel of it into his eyes to wipe away the tears he hadn't wanted to fall.
Everything hurt.
Silently, Gale got to his feet again, the floorboards beneath him creaking slightly with his weight. He hesitated a moment and then walked towards her, his movements slow, his steps light, and then he knelt down in front of her, his eyes taking in everything.
He lifted a hand and very gently, very lightly, set it alongside Stormy's cheek, his thumb brushing away a few of the tears that stained tracks down her hollowed face. He didn't say anything at all, lips pressed together, his expression pained.
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Posted: Fri May 09, 2014 11:02 am
Stormy couldn't hear anything over the sound of her own bawling, incapable of stopping herself not that it had started. Pauses were all she could manage in order to spit out those words, but immediately after she was weeping again. The room continued spinning the longer she heard nothing but her own white noise, her arms threatening to bend under the weight of it all and let her crash back down. Then the shadows would come eventually to take what the bugs hadn't, and she'd let them.
And then she heard it, in the small gaps between her sobs and sniffles: the faintest creaks towards her.
She could barely see him through the veil of tears, but it was enough. God, it was enough knowing he hadn't left, that it wasn't a permanent nightmare but a waking one that tore at her. Even if Gale was only there to tell her how pathetic she was, or that he regretted investing so much time and pain and energy on her, or even just to literally kick her while she was down to vent, she would have welcomed it: anything, anything to make him stay a little longer. If this wasn't rock bottom, then Stormy knew she was close. No sense of pride, no sense of self-preservation, no direction; just a red-eyed, teary, wasting away mess on the ground, shrinking under his pained gaze, shame and sorrow like bile in the cavities her organs used to be.
"Please," she whimpered as he brushed a fraction of the tears away, more quickly replacing them. As she blinked through them, she could have sworn she saw signs of them on his face as well, which only evoked another wave of sorrow to fall over her. Gale had never cried before, not in front of her at least; she almost thought him incapable by now. Then again, maybe he just didn't want her to see, just like she wished he didn't have to see this.
Shaking hands took his off her cheek before Stormy prostrated herself back on the ground, holding his hand like it was a prayer between hers as she pressed her forehead against them, gently sandwiching them again the floor. Her body continued to tremble, her tears slunk through the wrinkles of their fingers, and her breath was hot and erratic.
"Please . . . P-Please forgive m-m-me. I-I can't, I can't---don't--" She swallowed hard, fighting to breathe as her eyes shut tightly. "Don't leave me. I'm wrong, I-I'm wrong, but--p-please, Gale . . ." Her hands grew tighter around his, shaking from tears and from low blood sugar. "I-I'll do anything, just . . . Please, please j-j-just d-don't leave---don't leave witho-out me--"
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