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 Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2019 10:19 pm
cw: suicide mention, abuse Strange how ghosts fit into the margins of everything. They filled the corners of rooms, pressed their fingers into the cracks in the walls, fit in the interstices between picture frames and their hangers. They shadowed people like Hiroshima tragedies, never saying or affecting or becoming much. People talked about them like they were horror stories, ghosts. And sometimes, Eion felt like one.
Eion, the ghost of Elex. Sometimes a poltergeist, sometimes a wraith, Eion ever turned up with a chip on eir shoulder. Ey stirred wounds and prodded eir fingers into affairs in which ey enver belonged. Even now, as ey formed just inside the double doors to the veranda, as ey jogged across the same carpet ey laid on when Elex and his brother tried to play chess — tried, ey remembered, because neither one cared about the game so much as the stakes they weighed behind it, as much as the dares to kiss the neighbor's ugly daughter or leave dog s**t in the Beauregarde's pool or steal their father's ledger — as ey ran through all those old, repossessed halls, ey felt displaced. Unbelonging to this other world where humans were free to live and dream and commit suicide in the comfort of their own bathrooms.
Ghosts couldn't touch people like people did. Eion couldn't reach Aelius like Rowan had, couldn't inspire Wolframite like Tanzanite had. Eion haunted spaces and scrambled through floor plans and even in eir brightest moments, even when ey wasn't stumbling up stairs like ey was a devil chased out of hell, ey could only brush against someone. Ey could only convince them to turn their head, and by the time they did, nothing stood there anymore.
But, as Eion fell against the set of steps, as ey drew a wet breath and coughed blood against eir knuckles from bruised lips, ey realized the real ghosts were the ones already forgotten. The couches long removed from these familiar halls, the sculptures long sent to auction houses, and the family long turned to dust. Ghosts weren't the things haunting people. People haunted other people.
People haunted themselves. As Eion gathered emself up off the floor, blood-crusted and mottled, weary and ruddy and tear-streaked, ey haunted the people in this place. Haunted their sense of security. Planted unsubtle thoughts that a key went missing, or an alarm code was sold, or the manor was home to some violated trapdoor. Ey scraped a hand along the wall to wrench himself upright, to steady emself against weary pains. Sniffing back a wet breath, Eion pushed emself forward before one of the residents could haunt em back.ariaaa starstone dumb bloody kid just passin' thru ur hall
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Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2019 10:34 pm
Seren emerged from her room, with the intent to head to the kitchen, maybe make some tea, because she was feeling unsettled this afternoon. She was not sure why. Maybe someone had said something, and though she did not remember it, the words were scratching at the back of her brain. Maybe something she had read was bothering her... She really was unsure, but she knew something was bothering her, and she needed to go deal with this before she started getting anxious, stressed, and ended up in a spiral. And then she hear the sound of a hand on a wall, and a sniffing sound, and that lead to her to moving to one side for a long moment, out of any direct light, out of the line of sight of anyone, because the sounds were not things she was used to the others who lived in these walls making, and she felt it was... just best to be sure of what was going on. She crept forward, quietly, trying to see what or who was making those sounds. And then she saw him, the boy she had met once or twice before. With Tiberius, that giant fluff of a cat, and on the day she had finished moving in... And he looked awful, like someone had taken him and turned him into their personal punching bag. Seren froze, for a long moment, and shuddered, eyes going wide as, for a long moment, the sound of a snarled word and the feeling of a belt hitting bare, abused flesh filled her... And then she darted forwards, her voice soft but a tone that was usually calming. "Eoin... Come here, come upstairs. I have washcloths, and bruise cream, bandages and ointment... And I know how to handle wounds." She kept her expression gentle and calm, trying to use the sort of actions that she would have found comforting, had someone found her in a similar state, when she was young and abused. She did not know who did this to him, but part of her was sure it was the same sort of culprit as those who left the eternal marks on her back, and the ghosts of misery in her mind, and so she made no suggestions to contact anyone. If he asked her to, that would be another matter, but for now, she would offer him the support and care someone in his horrible condition probably needed. "Also, you won't have to deal with any of the other girls... They might freak out, though I do not know for sure." Strickenized It was his hall first razz
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Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2019 11:09 pm
Eion paused, hand frozen against the wall, red-rimmed eyes looking up to her with a vacant dullness to them. This place, the walls, the struts, the layout — all of it matched memory perfectly. But the people who lived and breathed in it now, they weren't the same. They were strangers with their strange things and their strange ignorance to the history in this place. To the ghosts they displaced.
"I remember you," ey wanted to say, but eir voice came out cracked and sputtered. Like someone let part of it out before ey first thought the words. Ey coughed into eir hand, sucked in a breath. Old blood flecked eir palm. Red, it was red — a dark and rusted color.
A color unbecoming of a ghost. Weary, Eion mounted the stairs again. Breaths came harder and faster, eir lungs overtaxed, but ey pushed upward. Fell once, recovered. Clamored with railing in hand to the top of the stairs. There ey paused to test all the hurts in eir body. The displaced rib pained em most, dug into lungs like a nag, and eir face throbbed with liberal swelling. Lips caked with spit and blood. Aue's punches blacked part of an eye, though rudimentary healing corrected most of the damage to eir nose. Wrists hurt, hands hurt, legs hurt in the wake of adrenaline. Self-defense left hands stiff and sore. But the brunt of eir pain was in places where washcloths and ointments couldn't reach.
Briefly ey wanted what Seren tasted like. Eir gaze fell to eir feet, where once upon a time a red runner rug led the way to the master suite. Past Seren, it would take em.
But Eion felt eir will slipping out of em. It hemorrhaged out the longer ey stood there, waiting for it to push em further. Standing there in a flimsy tunic, bound by maroon belts, was no general. No cunning thing with a lit pipe and more connections than a switchboard. Ey was a statue to victimhood made with everyone else's clay.
And ey donned that role through acquiescence. "Okay." The mumble was barely audible but for the quietude in that hall. "Lead on."
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Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2019 11:31 pm
The dullness in those eyes, the look on his face... It all rang out in ways she was aching with, because it resonated, somewhere deep inside of her. If he fled, the urge to follow would be strong, but she would not, because she could not force him to accept her aid. She knew that much, at least, from her own mind and words, from the rare times someone had reached out and tried to force her to speak to them when she was small and scared. It never went well, not for either party. And so, she waited for him to make a move, on edge but silent, waiting to see what his choice would be. His voice, though, she heard for a moment, cracking, sputtering, showing that something was damaged, and followed by a cough. That damage was beyond her skill, other then perhaps some basic tape... Just as the damage to his mind, his heart, his soul would be beyond her skill in all probability, though she would do all she could to offer him the safety, the freedom to speak it, should he need, and a compassionate ear to listen. When he began to move towards her, she simply held out a hand, not demanding, just an offer, in case he needed it or wished to take it... Strange, she found herself thinking for a moment, how it was that human touch could cause so much pain and damage, while at the same time could provide a great deal of comfort and aid. Their species was a miserable one, she could not but think, that they had the tools to create works of beauty, show great kindness and compassion, and yet so many chose to instead to show great cruelty, and create works of misery in the forms of their victims. "This way..." She said, softly, and turned to go back to her room. It was not far, and she watched him, the entire way, ready if needed to catch him. He had been hurt so terribly, and she wanted to slice the one who did such disgusting things to pieces, as she wanted to harm all who would hurt the young. He was the age she had been, she thought, when the beatings had stopped, to be replaced, of course, with other horrors. Once they got to the door to her room, she opened it, left it wide and darted to the ensuite, to gather the supplies, to run warm water and fill a bucket so wounds could be washed at need, before bringing it out to her coffee table. The furniture he had once eyed with disdain and distaste had slowly been replaced, to a degree, and she threw a towel over the couch, just in case. "Sit... Is there any wounds you can not reach yourself?" Her blue eyes were wide behind her glasses, but the only emotions she allowed to reach her eyes were compassion and kindness... Or so she thought. Perhaps, unaware though she was of it, traces of old pain, traumas never forgotten and years lost to misery showed... But only traces, if that.
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Posted: Tue Apr 30, 2019 12:00 am
Ey told emself not to look. Standing in there like a display, like a bruise to be admired and prodded at, Eion felt out of place in eir own ex-home. Nearly like ey was Elex again, but an Elex without the family and the money and the lack of responsibilities. Ey looked to eir hands, fingers tracing over the first signs of bruising around knuckles and fingers. Bruises that told Seren a story that she wanted to hear. Or —
Eio looked up, over to her, over to the shadow of her in the bathroom proper. Then eir face fell, crumpled like a tawdry report, and ey ducked into eir hands with renewed grief. A thick, saccharine sharpness lingered at the back of eir throat. Ey tasted it along tongue like an old curse.
Ghosts were the bruises dotting Eion's body, the tactile memory of a kiss to the forehead, the aural footprint of a heartbeat over breath. Ghosts were the stains left behind when people touched each other. Ey wiped eir face and looked out at Seren, haloed by ocular irritation, whose face was pinched at the corners of her eyes. People like her — nice people, quiet people — gathered ghosts all over themselves. She needed no starseeds for those ghosts to shape her and reshape her and rebreak her into more palatable versions. Eion wasn't different from her.
Nodding, Eion retired to the couch. Slipping arms through the billowy tunic proved easier than lifting it overhead, and it pooled around eir waist. Ey shifted, bared back where the break occurred and left a lumpy, mottled swath. Ey wondered, then, if it looked like a country. If it looked like anything at all.
Eir hands curled into the couch cushions. Sometimes ey liked the feel of its rough material both under and over eir fingers, but now, it felt somehow dirty. Like an entire kitchen slipped through those cracks, along with a few bank rolls of quarters and pennies and abused nickels. "I know I'm trespassing. I thought your apartment was ugly. I thought you were just a mediocre doormat. You don't have to be nice to me.
"You shouldn't be." Ey nearly looked over eir shoulder but for the spike of pain that left em wincing. Ey leaned further into the couch instead. Another wet breath, another sleeve passed over eir eyes. "So what's your angle?"
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Posted: Wed May 01, 2019 3:59 pm
His words made her pause and turn to look at him, blue eyes going distant as he commented on his thoughts about her, from that first meeting, and the way he assumed she had an 'angle' of sorts. Did she have an angle that she was working on? She did not think so, unless hating seeing a young person in the kind of pain she once endured in her own form was an angle. Her lips pursed for a moment as she pulled things together, making sure to get her instant ice packs out, because some of those bruises looked ugly indeed, and the way he was breathing made her suspicious. She began to crush it, to get the chemicals inside interacting properly, as she worked through her thoughts on how to answer this young man without telling him too much. Finally, she sighed, realizing that maybe telling him at least some of the truth would be the only way to go that would not sound suspicious, and she wrapped the now cold as ******** ice pack in a small towel. "Hold that to your ribs, where the pain is the worst... I did notice your breathing is bad... It should at least help with the swelling." She then lowered herself into a squat, resting in that position without sign of discomfort, and her eyes met his, trying to show him that what she said next was as honest as she could be with someone she barely knew. "First off, your judgments on my apartment were not unfair. It was ugly, and it was all I could afford, as the unwanted daughter who was cast off at the first chance given to my parents. Everything I owned, at that point, was gained through hard work and earned, but I will not deny that it was not attractive, for the most part." Her bed, which the boy would not see, as she had curtains separating the 'bedroom' space from the 'living' area of her room, was pretty much the one exception, and she had kept that. "As for me being a mediocre doormat... You were judging based on my reactions. I will not lie, I often react with fear and shyness, especially around those with an appearance that leads me to associate them as 'male', if I do not know them. But that does not mean I should be cruel, or unkind." She reached up, brushing back a lock of her hair, her bright and beautiful hair that was the one thing she had loved about herself for many years, years spent looking in a mirror and seeing the words her parents had spewed at her written across her face like they had been tattoo'd there. She bit her lip, for a moment, before continuing. "And yes. I should be nice to you. I should not show you the cruelty someone already has..." She glanced at his wounds, then back to his face. "Any more then someone should show such cruelty to me. My angle? My angle is that I have been hit and hurt, scarred and abused, and I have been treated with cruelty and hate..." The way he spoke as if he deserved to be mistreated made her suspect he had been told he DID deserve that, by someone vile... She had spent years, seeing herself as a curse because of words like that. "Having been treated that way, I choose to not do so to others. You do not deserve to be turned away. You are in pain, and I will help you, like I wish someone had been able to help me." A small pause, and then she stood again, turning away for a moment. There was a silence, a deep breath... And the back of her shirt slid up, in an intentional movement, something she had only done with two other people willingly in the past four years... And one was a tattoo artist. He would, if he looked, see the bottom of a full back piece... but if he paid attention, he would also see the scars the tattoo was meant to cover up, the raised lines of skin caused by beatings. She shuddered a moment, the shirt dropped, and she turned back to him, eyes blank because she had handed him something she rarely handed others... And she did it because she hoped it would show him her words were not a trap, meant to lure him to trust her, or lies to make him shut up.
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