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 Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2014 9:51 pm
She'd left for with her hair up and a smile and a day of freedom ahead of her. She was back, now, and it was if she'd been gone a sleepless week rather than a day. "America," he murmured, setting his plans down (for the house, for the bar) and moving towards her, "did you be sleeping at all?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2014 10:49 pm
Wordlessly, she wrapped her arms around him, slumping against the man until her head rested on his shoulder with a quietly relieved sigh. It's not that she didn't think he'd be here, it was simply because he was. After several minutes, America finally replied, "I couldn't stop thinking, so I just walked around." Without lifting her head she held up a small giftbag from what was becoming a familiar aquarium.
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Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2014 8:40 pm
Kostya's grip tightened, even as he accepted the gift with one hand, looking inside to see (another) stuffed manatee for his collection. (They were up to three, now.) Setting it down gently, Kostya looked at her with a quietly furious face. "Vhat," he said, tone flat, "did he do."
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Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2014 10:28 pm
At the tone, America buried her face into his neck, and admitted, "He didn't do anything. Really, he didn't," she sighed against his collar, "I...I keep pushing him because I just want so much, even when he lets me know he doesn't want something I keep pushing, you know I do. And it's...I think I'm ruining things for him." She was still raw enough from that one odd night full of grief and despair that the feelings of guilt from the night before had well and truly taken root. It made her feel pathetic and eventually it'd make her angry, but for now it was still just a softly keening sorrow that she still didn't know what to do with yet.
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Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2014 11:48 pm
"I have no idea vhat you just say," Kostya offered, after a moment of silence, and took the liberty of picking America up to hold her close, bridal style, and carried her towards the bed. "Not trying to be full of sass," he continued, taking a seat, leaning her up against a stack of pillows where he'd been reading. "I do not think I agree vith this ruining thing, that is for very certain." One of the manatees-- Trotsky, the one with the fake mustache-- was there, hidden under one of the pillows. Kostya pulled him free and handed him to America, mostly for squeezy-touchy purposes. He was well suited towards it, being covered in sequins and filled with sand.
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 12:08 am
She was tired in all sorts of way and the intense desire to be taken care of in this moment was something that America hadn't noticed with everything else circling her mind. The sudden sense of safe and home was almost overwhelming. Curling around Trotsky, it felt like she was breathing for the first time in too long. "He said...that I make him stupid. That he tried to fix things but he keeps backsliding." Closing her eyes, voice quietly muffled against the toy, the girl added, "He wants to stop doing things he isn't proud of and...." even softer, barely audible, "...last night was one of things." Inhaling deeply, the bitter hurt of those words was slightly softened by the family scent of Konstantin's shampoo and books and the smell that always lingered around him, barely there, that she simply thought of as winter and hers.
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 12:28 am
Kostya ran his fingers over her, not breaking contact: to rest her temple, card through her hair, a simple hand upon her shoulder to reassure her that he was still there. He held her close, and did not let go, the wordless promise between them. She had done this so many times for him, in the dead of night. He would now, and talk her through it, through the hypocrisies that were Obadiah Thompson. He still, in essence, did not understand. "Vhen I came back," he said, voice faraway as he remembered a conversation in the not too distant past, "he said you vere a vreck vhile I vas gone. He say this like he resent it, that you miss me. But, I am thinking, he resent it because it mean you care for someone that is not him." Kostya thought of Harrison's words. He was a noose around her neck, a leaden weight that would pull on her, down and down into a murky sea. "Vhat is it that he vants? To vant stopping do stupid things he is not proud of means there is something he vants that vould make him proud."
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 12:49 am
She gave a small, reluctant laugh, "Almost everything he says comes out grumpy and resentful." He'd once given her a list of the sort of people he gave a bad attitude to. Toying with the Trotsky's dandy facial hair, she idly considered which categories Konstantin fell under. Probably just trying to piss him off, though with Kon that never ended well for either man. "But he was right, and he had to deal with me all during too."
A pause end followed by a rush of words, "I don't want to stand in the way of him doing that. He asked me to help him." And that held a certain weight where let's not failed, a weight that made her pause and confess unhappily, "I don't know what to do."
And it was at this point she started to cry, voice breaking with hurt and confusion, "I had a really nice time."
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 1:33 am
"True," Kostya ceded, because Obadiah was full of resentfulness and exhaustion, and, on occasion, alcohol. "He said," he continued, words twisting to reveal the dark fury now roiling beneath the surface, "he could make you happy." The rage bled out of him-- or, at least, the visible portion of it, because Kostya forgot nothing-- when she wept. "America," Kostya murmured, helpless, and moved them both so he could hold her face to his chest. She was strong and ferocious and a conqueror, but once she'd told him that wasn't all she was, before he understood. She was a girl, too. She was human, too. "That vas unfair," he said, at last, clutching her-- not as if she were made of glass, because she was not. "For him to ask." He still, frustratingly, did not know what it was that he had asked. What he had meant. Obadiah wanted more from America than she could give, that much was obvious, but what was it? What was the esoteric value that was too much? What made him backslide? What did that even mean, in the context of America and Taym? He and Obadiah were going to need to have a talk.
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 2:18 am
"He already does," was the mumbled reply. Happy and furious and worried and a whole score of emotions, often within the span of a handful of messages. She had a feeling that was distinctly mutual, and saw no issue with the claim. of course he made her happy, why else would he be such a prominent part of her life? Why else would she try to hold on so tightly? Held firmly, surround by the solid comfort of Konstantin, her breathing evened out. The confusion of not knowing what to do while not wanting to ruin things she cherished had brought on small moments of panic throughout the morning. There was the sense, that things would be best, if she simply cut ties. And then they could both go on with their lives, the problem cleanly removed. The thought made her sick. It hadn't worked the last time she'd tried it, even with a faked death and nearly a year apart. "I don't want to let him go." The statement was almost petulant as sleepiness finally began to creep in. "I should but I don't want to." Another pause, and then, spoken in the watery tones usually reserved for the loss of a beloved pet, "M'gonna have to stop doing things. Like th'house for him n' our talks." She'd already stopped freely visiting him, so there was that at least. Would she ever even get to see room #252? The talks would be hardest though, enough to make her want to start crying anew. They were possibly the one thing that she could take for granted in her friendship with Taym, and now they'd come under question. Kostya's shirt was very soon a soppy mess of overwrought girl, exhaustion making it easy to give into simple, thoughtless emotion. Between them, Trotsky bore the abuse with his usual gentle eyed stare and charming smile.
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:06 am
"I know," Kostya replied, mournful, "but not in the vay he think he should. Happy is vord that come vith many connotation, I have learn." When Obadiah had said it, he'd meant it with an addendum of " without you or anyone else." With the addendum of a white picket fence and a storybook ending. With the addendum of America Jones as a possession and a prize hardwon, instead of a person. it was one of the many reasons why Obadiah was an ally but not an equal. He didn't have the sense for it. America ran away with her thoughts, chasing the same logic puzzles as Kostya was, albeit in different ways. He rubbed small circles into her back, soothing her as much as he could, but she felt like a hurricane at full force. Little could stand in the way of it. And besides, the more she talked, the more Kostya got the distinct impression that giving up the things she liked so much-- and wanted to do, so much-- was like cutting out a piece of herself. Kostya's grip tightened at the thought, unable to abide the thought of her making herself lesser for the sake of him. "So do not," Kostya said, logically. "Am still not knowing vhy he vant it to stop." He didn't mind the tears and everything else: laundry was an easily solved problem. This was not.
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:23 am
"Stability." And there was so much in the word, from longing to guilt to a tight sort of bitterness. "Something... maybe someone, normal." And she couldn't offer either, really, not for longer than a day or two of leave. Their friendship swung from love to rage on a dime and there was little that felt like it could be classed as normal between them, at least not right now, when emotions cast everything in bright light and stark shadow with little room for reason in-between.
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:34 am
He had a feeling that stability was another one of those loaded words, a gun with a bullet in every chamber save for one. "I see," Kostya said, sadly, because he knew that. When he'd told Taym that there was enough love in America's heart for the two of them-- and surely more-- he had said that it was easy for him to say that since he got the lion's share. But, he thinks, as long as she gave him some, he would be okay. He was grateful to have more than just "some". "Because you are not," he finished, squeezing her tight in a hug, face pressed to her temple for a quick, chaste kiss. "You are a star that burn him all up, and he vant to bottle it to put on a shelf." (Hypocritical, to call him out for such reasoning: the dark-tar in him craved to cage her, too, to enshrine her in safety and burn the ones that hurt her, but he knew, in the daylight, that that was impossible. Unnatural. Wrong. It did not make the desire go away, when the shade threw itself over his mind. Kostya thought of punishing Obadiah like numbers two and ten, to replicate the broken faces and shattered bone, to coldly punish when they had done wrong. Obadiah had not done any wrong, but he was wrong nonetheless. It required correcting.) "Am close?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:47 am
"I don't want to burn him up." Again her voice has small, verging on petulant. She was tired, nearly falling asleep; and this was Kostya and if anybody would accept all her upsets, both great and petty, with equanimity, it was him. "Or scare away Miss Long Term, or pull him back when he's trying to find something better for himself." Not so much because she was selfless (she wasn't and didn't that just make everything so much more difficult) but because he'd asked for her help.
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 5:41 am
"It's not just up to you," he said, softer, in a way that told that he'd repeat it to her in the morning when the storm of emotions had passed. He'd repeat it as many times as she needed to hear it, until it sank in. It was a two way street, and Obadiah was being unfair. "There is not better than you," Kostya continued, voice a whisper, because she was settling into rest, and he hoped it would be an easy one. "But I see. Miss Long Term, very much mystery." Long term, around this place, was a farce anyway.
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