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 Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2015 8:36 pm
If Zia had to pick the most rapid fire contact she would have once she unlocked the key to her old life, Pascal might not have even made top three.
Comforting as the nostalgia of their old relationship was, it was tainted and broke and tired by the things that came between the then and the now. Revelations of alignment and lies, and falling into vices and self destruction. Every thought about him was a scattered mess of layers and contradictions to the point he seemed unreal.
Seeing his face would resolve things, she had gotten it in her head.
Hopefully he was doing better at staying alive than she had been. He hadn't sold his soul. Yet. Hopefully.
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 3:12 pm
A lot of things had happened to Pascal since Zia had decided to bring the walls of his life down around him. She had been the center of his existence all along, and he hadn't even realized. She was the cat. She was the fixation. She was the blame. She was everything he hated about himself, and more. She was there, she was always there. She was paranoid about him but in the end he felt more threatened by her than anyone else. Her felt disgusted, he felt horrified and yet he was unable to let go.
He was obsessed.
She was gone.
His life had barely held together before and with her disappearance, it had shattered completely. He dropped out of school (or what might more accurately be called being expelled), he took to drinking alcohol more frequently than ever, and he risked his life nightly by powering up this way. He was bruised and broken, showing the wear on his face and body in concerning ways. What's worse? He hadn't shaved since before December.
Her messages had sent him over the edge.
He found himself through two bottles of cheap wine before he could grow the balls necessary to see her.
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 5:53 pm
Standing at the door to his apartment, a place that had been her apartment too for almost a year, was a nauseating and loaded experience that in her mental state caused a suffocating flurry of memories that kept her frozen at the door for a long time. She was late, well past their agreed on time, and that was mostly due to the fact she had been incapacitated seeing that door.
Their relationship was two years of toxic intensity, and it stuck with her well enough before her memories had gotten scrambled. It was worse now, feeling that all triggered at once and raw as the day it happened.
Her face flushed, and she held her hands close as she wavered in uncertainty. Maybe it would be smarter to leave and come back. But she'd already said she'd come, and there were things she needed to talk to him about anyway. So with a deep breath, she bit the bullet and knocked on the door.
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 6:12 pm
By the time Zia had actually knocked on the door, Pascal had made his way through another bottle of wine. He'd thought he'd offer her some upon her arrival but the longer it took her to get here, the more he felt his stomach twisting and turning. His emotions were all over the place, and the only way he knew how to face everything was by digging deep into the bottom of a new bottle of wine.
Wearing nothing but a part of jeans, practically hanging off his already thin waist, Pascal answered the door. He looked like a mess. He was tired, clearly not eating right and his body was black and blue from obviously recent brawls. Glasses hanging off his face, he straightened them up to his eye level as he took in the sight at his door.
He went to speak but nothing came out of his lips. He dropped his hand from the door frame and walked away from the door, leaving it open for her.
He offered her inside his apartment and it looked like no one had cleaned it in months. Gear parts and computers lie over the floor along with beer cans, bottles and weird smelling pizza boxes. He might excuse the mess but he couldn't bring himself to much as he couldn't bring himself to clean it before her arrival.
"So..."
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 6:52 pm
The door opening was not easy. For as much as Zia had built up how terrible and hard this would be in in her head, reality seemed to somehow manage to crawl under the bar.
Her eyes went wide at his battered figure, and then her expression seemed to temper with a look of pain when she looked in on the apartment. It was too easy to picture it stripped to its bones, and all of the various things that happened here. From a Thanksgiving had in bare feet on the couch to idealistic talks about being together forever, to ugly fights. This was the stage for so many things in so many years, and seeing it decayed like this was gut wrenching.
But not as much as seeing Pascal.
Zia herself had gone through some changes. She was visibly thinner, and still weak from her resurrection. But her scars were gone, and the brand on her chest had vanished. She was on the mend, or at least had a road to healing in sight. And he was still spiraling down.
The feeling of helplessness was palpable, and she didn't have the knowledge or skill to know what to say to him. She grabbed his wrist in an attempt to stop his departure, and then grabbed him in a hug as tight as her frail form would allow. "You smell so drunk," She attempted to snark, but it came out in the midst of uncontrolled bawling instead.
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 7:09 pm
A light touch on his arm paused his progression away from her. Her arms around him, he felt like he was drawn into a world that didn't exist anymore. A world he had tried so hard to hold onto, a place that would never exist again. Regardless of such certainties, his arms wrapped around her. He had no words to explain the past few months, nor the emotions or happiness that struck through him at this very moment.
She was here.
He thought he would never see her again.
She was crying.
His heart slowly sunk as the sounds escaped her lips, his body unsure of how to react. He wanted to comfort her, to take a walk down the path of the past, but instead he found himself pulling away when she drew attention to the reality of his alcoholism.
He was drunk. He had been drunk for the past three months, and he had been spiraling down it for months prior to it. He had been expelled from HITS because of it, and he had gotten many of of the bruises on his body because of it. He had no one to hold him back. There was no family in his life, barely any friends, and the one person he had leaned on had all but disappeared.
Now she was here, and he felt guilty. So guilty. He felt like she was judging him. Always judging him. She never stopped judging him! He knew, he knew how she looked at him. This was all a lie. This wasn't them. This wasn't him. This wasn't her. Both of them were dead. Both of them died to the war of Destiny City.
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 8:28 pm
Zia would agreed they'd both died. But she had come back. And he could too.
There was progress made and discoveries at hand. She had dragged herself out of darkness and now it was time for Pascal to get with the program, even if she needed to drag him kicking and screaming behind her.
"I need to tell you things. The situation has changed," She said, hoping that at least she could get his attention, even if his mind was clouded. She sniffled, and tried to stop the very undignified sobs that came through her throat and kept interrupting her speech. When she pulled out of the hug, she observed his injuries again, and the muscles of her face pulled into a cringe as another wave of tears came while she brushed her fingers against a bruise.
"You should go sleep. Sleep it off. I'll still be here, I promise."
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Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 6:31 pm
"I'm fine," he said, waving her worries off with a brush of his hand as he staggered toward the kitchenette. He knew the best way to solve this, and it was under the cabinet with the rest of the alcohol. He knocked a few things over in the process but a couple seconds after disappearing from her view he popped back up another bottle of cheap wine in his hand.
"Or we can have a drink," he said with a grin. That was the best way to talk about anything with your ex-girlfriend who was secretly a cat and who possibly ruined his life.
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Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 7:53 pm
Zia sniffled and did her best to look scathingly angry as he walked away and popped back up with more alcohol... which was not working so well with her face flushed and tear streaked.
"Or you can go sleep it off so we can have an actual talk about s**t," She said, walking over to make a serious attempt at jerking the wine bottle from his hands.
"s**t, Pascal, this is too much. You need to sleep this off."
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Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 7:08 pm
More than a little drunk, and angry, Pascal slammed the bottle of cheap wine down on the counter. It broke with a loud bang, the wine pouring all over the counter and onto Pascal as the liquid all ********, Zia! You're too much! You disappear from everyone and you come prancing back in here like you own the ******** place!" He yelled, dropping the bottle down on the counter in a futile attempt to free himself from the madness. He went to step toward her but he stopped as he stepped on a shard of ********," he groaned before continuing on his tirade. "Newsflash! You don't! Why don't you just leave me alone already?"
Somehow, he couldn't ever say what he wanted. Inside, he wanted to hear of the news she had and the possibilities they had searched for together. However, he could never say what he meant. Everything came out wrong. It was like his life ruled over him and things would never be right again.
"Just go..." He said, bracing himself on the counter.
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Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 9:05 pm
Zia opened her mouth to protest, and then closed it right back up. She had disappeared. She had left. But she refused to feel guilty for it. She couldn't hep him then, she could barely help herself. They had both been dragging each other down to a dark place.
But she could help him now, she said, trying not to let the oncoming feelings of helplessness and incompetence creep in, even if they brought a new wave of tears to well up in her eyes.
"I'm not leaving," She said, tiptoeing through the mess and making room to sit on the sofa. She rested her purse in her lap and sat there as if settling in for a long wait.
"You can't make me."
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Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 9:08 pm
"Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?" He cried, letting out a drowned out sound as his head hit the cabinet in front of him. Why did she do this to him? Why wouldn't she just let him die in peace? He knew where his road ended. He knew what was going to happen to him. He was never going to escape. Years of trying, years of looking, years of planning had all but been thrown back in his face. Why did she keep coming back? Why did she keep trying to give him hope?
"You can't save me," he said, releasing the bottle onto the countertop.
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Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2015 11:08 pm
Zia's eye roll seemed almost in synch with his long, extended 'why'. And then she crossed one leg over the other, stubbornly sitting in her place.
She held her bag in her hands on her lap and fiddled with the zipper, a long pause after his statement that he couldn't be saved. And then she stopped and cast him a long glare, as if she was thinking about something.
"I might," She said finally. He was surprisingly easy to resonate with. Crying out, lost, everything she identified with that had attracted her to him in the first place. And it made the transference of reality that much easier in the split second she powered up, and then forced them to Tartaros.
Suddenly in a grand hall of marble floors and tall columns with the night sky shining through ornate windows. Zirconia stood before him, adjusting her skirts.
If he wasn't going to willingly sleep it off, she would make him sleep, and she felt much better knowing that his intoxicated body was unconscious on the kitchen floor right now.
"I've never stopped searching for the way out, Orpheus."
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Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2015 1:45 pm
Pascal was hunched over the counter, fidgeting uneasily as he watched her on his couch expectantly. He waited for her to leave but she didn't and he found himself sighing. He didn't even get to question her on what she meant when she said she might be able to save him before his body hit the countertop and then fell onto the floor shortly afterward as she forced him into Tartaros with her. At least she could attribute his future headache to the hangover he was going to have.
Surprised, he immediately stumbled back on the marble floors until this body fell there as well.
"Where... are we?" He said, his eyes falling upon her.
"You look different. You look really... thin," he followed up with, avoiding what she said about never searching for a way out.
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Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2015 9:53 pm
Zia, or rather Zirconia now, seemed to take on a knee jerk and instantly defensive expression and stance.
And after a small exhale, settled for heaving her shoulders and looking out the window at absolutely nothing. "Yes, well. I've sort of been dead for two weeks. And I haven't quite recovered."
She made a slight gesture to her collarbone where Ares brand once marred her skin. There was nothing on her flesh. No scars, no marks, tattoos, callouses, nothing. She was completely reborn.
She saved his first question for last. "This is Tartaros, the nightmare realm. I conquered it, and now it is mine," She announced, mustering all the haughtiness she could before she started pacing and dragging lace and tulle and silk on the marble floor.
"So, obviously, things have been happening. Will you listen now?"
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