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 Posted: Wed May 14, 2014 10:33 am
"Anymore". That was what the dark parts of her wanted to add: I'm not angry with you anymore. Only people with hearts of stone continued with anger after seeing a breakdown like that, and she knew it. Maybe there was still some leftover Gale was hiding. He ought to be angry, if not resentful.
(Don't think like that.)
Unsure of how to respond at first, Stormy let the pen rest against the journal, half of her mind trying to decipher an answer from her varied thoughts, the other half listening to him. She watched with the same sad eyes as before, and they remained even as his opened, momentarily locking. They had both lost sisters, he had reminded her, but the way they had coped with it had been vastly different, had shown what the real caliber of their characters were: strength versus weakness. He ought to be ashamed of her by now.
(Stop thinking like that.)
But Stormy couldn't. It was the self-imposed divide again, the circular thoughts that always designated her as the lesser, as nothing at all. They were wrong, but familiar and comforting and painful.
Her eyes closed and tensed, and a tear leaked out. Hastily she wiped it out of existence, forced herself to control her breathing, and picked the pen back up.
Maybe that's why I felt okay around you, though, because I knew you'd keep going instead of just
stopping.
You knew where you wanted to go even if you didn't know how and it's admirable. You've never compromised y
She had to stop as another small wave lapped over her, gripping the pen in a fist as something tried to drag the back of her throat down into a bottomless pit, as another tear had to be quickly wiped off. Part of her writing began to bleed ink from the pressure.
I'm so sorry. But I wish I could do that. I should have done that. I tried I tried so hard but I did everything so wrong this whole time.
You have a right to your anger, you have a right to your shame, you have a right to your pain. But I can't give you mine.
I'd rather drown than take you down with me.
That was the problem with Jack: we both cared too much in different ways.
Someone has to be stable, someone can't be so affected, needs to be sane.
You said, "Earth to Stormy," once, during the storm. I said yes.
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Posted: Wed May 14, 2014 7:12 pm
Her eyes were so sad. His heart ached watching her, his fingers twitching as Gale idly pulled at a stray thread on his pants. She had stopped writing, the pen in her lap, and his eyes flickered to the corner of her eye where a tear slid free, sliding down her cheek. He wanted to reach out and brush it away, but the moment felt wrong, and he just watched her carefully for any signs that would mean he would need to retreat.
It was terribly strange, having to be this cautious - but if he thought about it, she had always been careful to keep things at a certain level between them, with the exception of one or two instances (the drunk night being one of them, and the beach being another). There was hand holding, and kissing, which occasionally progressed into something a little longer, something a little more intense, but even then she had made sure to keep that space between them; and for the most part, Gale had never minded.
This was no different, he told himself firmly, though they both knew it was.
Stormy was pushing too hard on the pen; he could see the ink sliding down, blotting in places and smearing across the letters. Gale tried to read upside-down, but it was too difficult this time, and he balled his hands into fists in his lap, twisting Jinhai's ring for comfort and reassurance.
<< Let her write it all out. Be patient with her. >>
I know, I know.
And he did, but it didn't mean it was easy. Gale's shoulders tensed a little when she finished, but he read everything anyway. Some parts were harder to read than others, the ink bleeds creating small dots of black, but he formed the words in his mind, filling in the missing pieces.
"If I can't go down with you, then how can I help you?" he asked, his face falling a little. "I don't want to save you; I'm not - I'm not a hero. I want to help you, I want to be with you and help you through this because I know how much it hurts and every time you hurt I hurt. I am not Jack," Gale added, gritting his teeth a little, but he knew she wasn't trying to compare the two of them together. "I won't - I can't leave you alone, and I know that makes me selfish, and I know that makes me greedy, but I can't."
His fingers curled around his ankles. "I can stay grounded for your sake," he said softly. "But I won't let you drown alone. I can't."
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Posted: Wed May 14, 2014 8:45 pm
The mundane helped sustain her temporary serenity: Stormy fiddled with the cup, traced shapes into it, drank from it, tapped it, stitched her fingers together around it, cleaned her teeth with her tongue, swallowed, breathed--anything to occupy herself as he read. There was a pause of course when Gale answered, though she only managed a fleeting glance at his expression before darting back down to her hands, if anything sadder.
All she had to do was close the gap, but she was slowly being paralyzed by an unending sorrow, the one that had ensnared her when she woke up. Even writing was starting to feel pointless.
Stormy pressed the pen tip into her hand harder and harder, waiting for the pain to spark something inside of her. When nothing but an inkblot came about, she gave a soft sigh and abated, weakly tugging the journal towards her. The first line she wrote out and then completely scratched out with such methodical precision that the wet, inky rectangle was practically a work of art. The rest was more uniformed (if hastily jotted down) than her handwriting had been before, an extension of the control she was trying (failing) to exert over herself.
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't want you hurt.
But I do know that I put myself here and if I can't get myself out then it's just what I deserve. And I keep coming back, too; this isn't the first time. I avoided it for a while,
but here I am like the prodigal son come back from his journey to home.
The only way to give the brightest smiles is to know the darkest sorrow.
Her vision grew blurry. Stormy half heartedly rubbed her eyes against her shoulder, only half-doing the job, sniffling.
She hated me, came the shaky next few lines, her eyes growing more and more glassy. I dream of it still. Her handson my neck and her breath is sour and she chokes me
and stares one eye one hole and asks WHYandI can't answer shescho king me WHY YOU I let her Ilether sufocate me
She dropped the pen like it was made of fire and half-gasped, half-sobbed for breath as more tears fell, her eyes clenched tight, her hands clenched tight into her knees."I-I can't, I can't, I c-can't--"
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Posted: Wed May 14, 2014 11:57 pm
She'd crossed something out he couldn't read, something scribbled and then scratched out with care until nothing could be seen but a mass of black ink and little smudges of the pen across the page. Gale could feel the shift in the air almost as though it was tangible; Stormy's writing had become more frantic, her words repetitive, stumbling over one another even in text, and Gale felt a certain sense of panic begin to well low in the pit of his stomach.
"You won't hurt me," he whispered, but the tears were welling in her eyes, and her hand was shaking as she tried to write more, drops landing on the page and smearing the ink so that the words blended together, one with the next, until everything had passed to the one after and the one before and it was hard to tell what was the beginning of one word and the ending of another.
And Stormy herself had begun to shake, her fingers around her knees, and Gale could feel a rushing noise inside of his head.
Wordlessly he got up onto his knees in front of her and reached out. His hands pressed against either side of Stormy's face, gentle but firm, not constraining, but rather trying to remind her of where she was and who she was.
"Stormy," he said forcefully. "Stormy. Breathe. Just breathe. Just breathe. You are not suffocating. Nevada is not killing you and you didn't kill her. You can Stormy. Look at me. Look at me, Stormy, and listen to me. You are not drowning. You're not suffocating. You're still breathing. You think that all you do is exist, but that's enough for right now. You've gotta start at the bottom to get to the top, and I'm right here with the ladder."
It wasn't a plead; it was more of a demand, but not as harsh, Gale's expression determined.
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 1:26 am
Breathe.
She was, but was air going through at all? It never seemed enough. It wasn't just Nevada's hands, it was the crushing weight of thoughts she'd let pile up atop her as well, everything wrong that had caused a ripple effect and harmed someone else; and it was the bugs swarming her, living darkness that buzzed with hunger and oozed pestilence; and it was the desert sand as she was dragged under and lost her memory, and blood as spines skewered her, and fog as she became a puppet to voices; and it was the tempest in the ocean, the waves crashing over her and threatening to fill her with burning salt water.
Just breathe.
So Stomy gulped them down, steady breaths, shaky breaths, half-sobs, sniffles. But it ached to stretch her lungs for some reason, just as her stomach gnawed on what little sustenance she had bothered for the day. If it weren't for the water, she might have shrivelled by now. She listened to Gale, but she didn't look at him; he was, for now, just a warm touch that slow tears snuck under and a firm voice asking her to do something frightening.
Contact. Her fists uncurled and shakily landed atop his hands, a little sweaty to the touch. She was nervous and shaking her head ever so slightly.
"It was real. I know it was real b-because I never would have made this up. I-I was awake and I heard her because it was too quiet, the silence was so loud, the bugs were buzzing again in my head, but she thought I was sleeping and she came in and saw it was broken a-and got mad, 'nononono', and came over to the cot and I felt her hands right there on my neck--"Her head was starting to throb and her stomach cried out for something more, but all Stormy wanted to do was fall asleep again. The room was threatening to spin again, so she pressed Gale's hands a little more against her face to anchor herself (breathe), her expression somewhere between stricken and exhausted."Tired," she mumbled weakly, her eyes still closed. "No more, p-please. Please. Not today. I-I can't fall anymore."
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 9:27 am
"I know," said Gale quietly. His fingers were starting to get wet from the tears sliding down her face, but he didn't move them. His thumbs brushed lightly over her cheeks, trying not to wipe away all of her tears, but to alleviate some of them. "Stormy, I know. You wouldn't make this up. I know that. But Nevada - she loved you. She loved you and whatever pain she was feeling...she wasn't herself when she passed. She was lost, not as person, but just...she lost herself. You tried to find her; you did your best because you loved her."
Her hands had covered his, tremulous and shaking, and the dark circles beneath her eyes almost seemed to have expanded, taking over her entire face. Gale's shoulders eased a little, his expression sad, and carefully he leaned forward, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.
"Then rest," he said softly. "We can rest for today."
He slid his hands away from her face and climbed off the bed, reaching for the forgotten sandwich plate. Gale set it aside on the little table and the notebook went beside it, the pen on top of it. His eyes moved briefly across the words and the ink still smeared over them before he turned back to the bed, tugging the blankets down a little and fluffing the pillows.
"You don't have to use the blankets," he told her. "But just in case."
The three amigos were on the floor. Gale picked them up and set them upright beside the bedside table, lined in a row, and then turned back to Stormy. His expression was surprisingly affectionate, his eyes soft, and Gal reached out a hand, gently brushing the backs of his knuckles down Stormy's face.
"Get some rest," he told he quietly. "I'll be here when you wake up."
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 10:33 am
"M'sorry," she whimpered several times as Gale moved about, her hands still in place even as his slid out. Was any of that even a step forward, or a waste of time? It was more than Stormy had given anyone in much longer than a month, and it felt to her like too much even though it barely scratched the surface.
But the exhaustion might be a blessing in disguise. Maybe for once she could stay asleep.
Slowly she wiped her eyes as Gale set the kids straight again, sniffling and overall feeling pitiful about the whole thing. She knew she ought to shower but couldn't get her legs to work, and she knew she ought to eat but downstairs felt like a whole other planet in distance. Besides, if she didn't think about it too much eventually her stomach would quiet down.
< < You are wasting away for nothing. > >
Stormy didn't answer.
When warm contact was made again, for a moment she seemed to perk up. Her hands encapsulated Gale's and kept it there for a few moments longer, gently pulling it to her lips. A kiss for a kiss, though hers was limpid.
She wanted to ask him to stay, but the words were buried behind a wall again. Stormy no longer knew if her body craved comfort or pain in separation, and if she had had more life to her it would have been maddening; it was as if she was mired in the belief that suffering was an art.
But eventually her hands fell away and let him go.
"Okay," she whispered before turning her back to him and curling up, her body sagging atop the sheets as she closed her eyes. She was filthy and didn't want to sully the bed.
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 10:53 am
"Don't apologize," said Gale softly, reassuringly. He could see the way that she sat, her hands still on her face, every once in a while moving to wipe away the tears, and though his heart was aching, he refused to let it show, refused to let her feel any worse about it than she already did.
He touched her face and she grasped his hand and he felt his stomach flutter, his expression softening. Stormy's lips were warm and dry against his skin, and in spite of the fact that hers was quieter than his own, it made no difference to him. He brushed his thumb lightly against her jaw as she let go.
She finally laid down, but Gale didn't leave yet. Instead he shifted his feet and watched her for a few moments, the silence filling the room, and his eyes traced the lines of her face, the curve of her body as she curled herself tightly, the way that her lashes fluttered whenever she breathed.
"I love you," he said quietly and bent over to kiss her forehead again before he leaned back - but he didn't leave the room, instead turning and sitting down on the floor beside the bed and leaning back against it. He pulled out his phone and flipped through it absently, mostly out of something to do rather than sit there staring at his hands.
Gale said nothing at all, just sat beside the bed quietly.ol-j-man MEDI I JUST SAW YOUR SAD BLOOD N' SPICE COMMISH OF STORMY AND WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 11:14 am
For once, she slept with very little breaks interrupting. Her leg jerked her awake once the way they sometimes did when the body thought it was falling, but even in the darkness she could make out the faint outline of his head, a different shade than the night. Stormy had fallen asleep faster than expected and hadn't known he had stayed on the floor, and when her breathing became regular again she sighed softly at the revelation. He'd get stiff that way. But he hadn't left. Blearily Stormy reached out and scooted until her fingers could be as grace notes atop his head, barely there but existing, affectionately stroking a few locks. She held the position until her arm started to tired, and then after a few more strokes retracted it and went back to sleep. She would stay in slumber even longer than last time, stirring around 2 pm with a yawn. kuroopu o7o because ilu of course Crap tag because piano time whee
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 5:21 pm
He felt her hand brush over his hair sometime later, an hour or two after she'd fallen asleep; and Gale smiled to himself, his heart in his throat as he looked down. He'd moved from playing on his phone to borrowing Stormy's notebook, absently jotting mission notes down, ideas, concepts. He would have turned to look at her, but he didn't want to break the spell of the moment, so he let her fingers sift through his hair and after a while she stopped and went back to sleep, Gale continuing with what he was doing.
He didn't realize he'd fallen asleep. When Stormy awoke, it would be to find Gale curled up on the floor, his head against the side of the bed, his eyes closed, his breathing deep and steady. His lashes fluttered every so often, and on his lap the notebook still lay, the pen long since having slipped out of his fingers and rolled away under the bed.
On the notebook he'd written a phrase - remember to talk to Marcus about Cass - and then it had listed a part of a word before trailing off.
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 6:11 pm
She knew the moment sapience started trickling in that today was starting marginally better than it had before. The sadness was still there, but it was less of an oppressive weight and more like a cotton coat that existed atop her person without exactly hindering. Her exhaustion had shrunk to just a lingering tiredness, which was better than expected even though there were still bags under her eyes. It was a slow process, but she counted these as signs that it was good to open up; even if it hurt.
Stormy rolled onto her back and winced as she stretched out and yawned again. Breathe. And she did.
Blindly she stretched a hand out, half-expecting to meet Gale's head again. When there was only air, Stormy turned her head and saw his curled form on the ground and asleep, his head lower than before. It was odd: he had offered to sleep on the floor before, but she had never actually let him. This was his house. Sleeping anywhere aside from the couch or a bed seemed out of the question.
He really hadn't left. A faint smile came to her.
Careful and quiet, Stormy roused herself and got off the bed, toeing her way around to his other side. It was a rare opportunity catch him asleep as normally he was up long before she was. Had Gale stayed up too long? She really hoped it wasn't on her account...Still, it was a sight she drank in for a while, unblinking, before she fetched her phone from its charger and took a photo, pleased. Even the angel needed to sleep.
The question now was, wake him or let him sleep? Stormy's eyes were wondering idly as she considered the merits of both when she belatedly noticed he had her journal in his lap--and her heart skipped a beat as the blood rushed to her face. He...hadn't read it, had he? That one was her newest so there wasn't much in there aside from what she had written last night, but still...
Closer inspection told her he had also written in it, though. Stormy swallowed and blushed more, finding the idea strangely intimate. Sharing. Not just words but thought processes, ideas, mental notes...almost like mixing minds but more passively. She longed to investigate it all, but she couldn't be sure Gale wouldn't wake up in the middle of it.
Pressing her lips together in thought, Stormy tried to locate the pen and found she had to reach for it under the bed. With it in hand, she delicately lifted the journal out of his lap and quickly added on the line beneath his latest note, Good afternoon. Are they okay? Both journal and pen (tucked securely inside as a bookmark with the journal closed) was then placed back in Gale's lap before she got to her feet and gave him space.
Her stomach gnawed away at her, but Stormy concentrated on slowly unzipping her bag so she could start taking things out. She had meant to before, but...well...
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 8:20 pm
Truth be told, Gale hadn't remembered that it was Stormy's private journal before picking it up, flipping to a blank page without reading the rest of it. He'd settled down, picked up the pen, and absently began to make notes. Some were relatively illegible, Gale's handwriting having grown more rough and less precise according to the rate at which he actually cared about what he was writing; but there were also little notes in the margin that were carefully written, clearly done with something specific in mind.
He'd doodled Stormy's name in the corner of one page, drawn a heart around it just like a teenage boy in high school would have done. The lines were deep as he'd run the pen over them several times until the ink was black against the white page. Another page he'd started a list - beach, house, fields, Eiffel tower??? Louvre??? - and below that his own name along with Stormy's, circled a few times.
The rest of his scribbles were mostly mission notes, something about an artifact, and then a few absent doodles where Gale had clearly gotten distracted thinking about something or other. A flower here, a cloud there, and then a few smiley faces, as though he'd tried to lighten the mood.
He'd only been asleep for perhaps an hour or two when Stormy awoke, and he didn't rouse when she stood over him, or even move when she slid the notebook away to write in it herself, Gale's hair falling into his face, his breathing steady. It was only when Stormy started to unzip her bag that he stirred a little, wincing slightly as he stretched out his neck and realized that she was awake.
"Hey..." he mumbled tiredly, still bleary eyed, and cracked his neck because sleeping in that position for several hours was probably not the most intelligent idea he'd ever had. But Gale sat back up and gave Stormy a sleepy smile before realizing that the notebook in his lap had something new written in it.
"Oh," he said, and was abruptly flustered, his cheeks turning red. "No, erm, they're, erm, fine, I just...I had a question for them, is all, erm."
Gale hastily closed the notebook and pushed it aside, focusing on Stormy instead. "How are you?" he asked, as he stretched a leg out in front of him. "Did you sleep well?"
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 9:10 pm
By the time Gale woke up, there were two wigs out on the bed. Judging from the colorful inside of her bag, there were still at least several more. Her hat had been discarded momentarily to try a red one on, and she was just about to pull out the rest when Gale stirred.
Stormy froze, then with great embrassment snatched the red wig off her head and replaced it with her beanie once more as she dumped the wig with the rest, her cheeks darkening. It was hard to dispel what little she had seen in the journal from her mind, let alone wonder why he wanted to ask Marcus and Cass a question. She instead focused on stuffing the wigs all back into the bag, as if "out of sight, out of mind" really would work, cursing inwardly.
"Oh," she answered softly, her voice still a little creaky. "Okay, then. I'm okay. I think." Stormy pulled the lid of the bag back on top but didn't zip it up, clearly still embarrassed and unsure why she bothered. Her gaze fell to her idle hands for a moment, then eventually made their way back to Gale.
"You didn't look comfortable like that. You could've sat on top've the bed too, you know. Wouldn't get a stiff neck," she mumbled.
Her fingers drummed lightly on the bag.
"Sleep okay anyway? If not, you should take a nap. Naps're great. S'kinda late to take one now though . . . Not that afternoon naps are weird, it's just that you just woke up so it's, you know, um . . . Guess i-it'd just be falling back asleep, huh . . ."
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 10:03 pm
She was trying on wigs. Gale's brows rose in surprise, his mouth opening to say something (he wasn't sure what), but Stormy's face colored with obvious embarrassment, and he promptly shut his mouth again, simply giving her a small, gentle smile.
Thankfully, she switched topics away from the awkwardness of trying to explain why he wanted to talk to Marcus, for which Gale was grateful; he watched her put the wigs back into the bag without explanation and though he wanted to tell that he didn't mind her loss of hair, or that he thought the wigs were pretty, but it was obvious that she wanted them out of sight and stowed away.
He shifted a little on the floor. "Glad to hear it," said Gale, and then smiled a little as he added, "My neck's a little sore, but for the most part it wasn't too bad. I wanted to give you space, room to move around if you wanted to or if you just needed it."
He didn't add that he had been afraid that she wouldn't have liked it; that she would have pushed him away or shrunk inwardly again, retreating to the confines of her mind where he couldn't reach her. Gale stretched out his arms in front of him and cracked his fingers together.
A small laugh escaped him. "I know what you mean, don't worry," he said, and got to his feet, twisting to get the kinks out of his back. "But I'm okay, really. Are you thirsty? I could make you some tea or cocoa. If you're hungry, I think I still have some soup or some pasta we could try making."
Calm, simple conversation, that was it.
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 11:44 pm
Space. Oh. She was touched (and it was good to feel something other than sadness and bitterness for once, however small and fleeting) but found herself feeling more self-conscious for some reason, like it had been a silent demand he had felt beholden to grant. "I haven't showered in a long time," Stormy said mildly, averting her gaze. "It's probably better you stayed downwind." It wasn't news to her that she was . . . not exactly filthy, though her body odors had built up in the clothes she had worn day after day, but it had been hard to think beyond herself too. The smells, awful as they were, were at least her own. There were more than a few articles of clothing beyond her current set that would need a thorough wash . . .
God, and she had brought them into his house.
"I, um . . ." Stormy moved to tuck hair behind her ear like she sometimes did unconsciously, but when her fingers swept nothing but skin she hastily changed it to scratching. "Hot cocoa sounds good."
< < You must eat. > >
She didn't deny it, but neither did she bring up a choice of food. The first day reunited Stormy had been a mess, the second day utterly depressed: the third day seemed to be shaping up to be one of caution, low emotion, nerves, and also embarassment. It was supposed to be a step forward, but all she felt was a strange sense of fragility that was making her a little too sensitive (or, well even more sensitive) to everything--like one wrong motion or word would cause an explosion.
Stormy had never been in this situation before. She was both curious and afraid of what would happen. Calm, simple conversation it was, but it was only the veneer.
"I'll finish unpacking and meet you downstairs?" she suggested, forcing her eyes back to his.
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