[ She comes unbidden, pretty much like she always does, and crawls onto the foot of his bed, settling in with her back against the wall, her knees bent up to make room for his shins. She's unsteady, a familiar enough sensation by now, what is already wrong inside of her more potent, squirming beneath the surface. She picks at her nails, not trying to make him guess what she wants, but not quite ready with fully formed words yet either. ]
[It isn't the shifting of weight at the foot of his bed that wakes him up. It's something else, a sensation pricking at the edges of his mind, even in his dreams, like too many needles -- it's the presence of a broodmate drawn so close, coiling around his thoughts, that forces him to breach the thick fog of his sleep.
Actual lucidity lags behind. He sits up, blinking away drowsiness, looking at Annie who's perched herself nearby.]
What's wrong?
[He's tired, but never tired enough to not be concerned.]
[ Her feet peddle, one up, one down against the sheets, tapping with the ball of her foot and then up again. After a long exhale she starts to rattle off, haltingly. She stops hard on in-between words, watching the thought she's having unravel in front of her before continuing. ]
Thinkin' about the dead kid. Sort of. Now that I say that I wish I'd known he was havin' such a hard time. Although. Not sure what I would have done. I've seen a lot of kids kill themselves. Like. I can count... probably 10 or 20 faces. In my head, I probably don't know their names. It happens when you push on them too hard. Or it doesn't and they're just living dead. We just drank a lot instead and made it all really far away so that we could handle it. I lost my shit at one of our chicks, cuz her fucking boozing got in my head and I almost like actually cried because of how much I just wanted to get shitfaced with her like I used to but I, uh.
[ Oh right. She's... talking to someone. She turns her head towards him, eyes big in her face. ]
Sorry, I... don't know how you stop someone from killing themselves. I'd do the same thing as him. But uhm, I wouldn't want to hurt you or the girls, like I can't get all the way there with the like saving you from myself thing because I know you'd have to die with me, like. With the brain bug thing.
[ The emotion she is feeling is vast and murky, unfiltered pond scum and muck. ]
The kids are all that stopped me, for a long time. Can't drink around them either, I feel guilty. Just... too guilty. And I don't want them to be like us, so strained that they just-- [ She closes her eyes. Dead girls in her head. ] So I don't, uhm, do any of that any more and it's pretty hard.
[ Pretty hard to get it into words too, she's never talked to anyone about it. She just did because she was in love with Therese and because she wanted to do the right thing and it twists in her. She doesn't know what's right, she doesn't know how to succeed, and that makes her feel... fragile. If she could just take that away with a few shots, everything would be fine but, but, but... She doesn't even know she's holding her breath, sweat on her forehead waiting to hear what Noctis thinks of her now. ]
[This is one of those instances that Noctis wishes he could say the “right” thing. There were people he knew who perfected the art (Ignis’ face flashes in his mind), but Noctis always struggles. He empathizes, he understands more than people realize, but actual articulation is troublesome, always slipping through his fingers. He wishes he were eloquent like royalty should be. To be able to offer consolation that didn’t feel unsatisfactory, a balm for the pain, was a talent he would never be graced with.
He can at least make an effort, but it comes delayed, slogged with thought and consideration. It’s easier to let Annie’s anxiety twist within him, to let that settle in his core. This, at least, he can offer as confirmation that he’s not pushing her away out of discomfort — unpleasantness be damned.
There’s a lot to respond to, but he decides on one thing specifically for now.]
You can’t burden yourself with everyone’s well-being here. [He wonders briefly if that sounds cold, or if it's hypocritical of him. It isn’t how he means it, and in retrospect it doesn’t sound like a very kingly thing to say. He didn’t know the young man who died, but he feels the hole in the Nest just as prominently as the rest.
He tries to make an addendum.] It’s too much for one person. There’s too much out of your control — out of everyone’s control, and it’s not fair to yourself.
[And then, perhaps more importantly:] And I don’t ever want you hurting yourself, Annie. If it ever feels like it’s getting to that point, you come to me first. [He watches her expression carefully.]
[ She admits, exhaling that out. Her head thunks back against the wall, throat arched, eyes closed, mouth hanging open like she's been running for days. ]
I just care about you. M'always bad like that, get all wrapped up in somebody because I'm not good at-- [ She makes a helpless gesture with her hands, unable to articulate what she's bad at: being a person, friendship, love, relationships. ]
But I gotta make myself feel responsible for the girls. If I... If no one was relying on me, I dunno. I can't be in charge of myself.
[ Which is shitty and she knows it. She didn't used to know, that was the great thing about being high all the time. ]
You said you wished you knew that he was having a difficult time. [The kid who died, he means.] That's what I meant -- I don't think we have the capacity to process what everyone is going through. How everyone reacts to being away from home, being brainlinked to everyone else, to... I don't know. The strain of it all.
[A shrug of a shoulder. He's not sure if he's getting the point across, but it's not surprising to him if he isn't -- but the gesture isn't to be mistaken for flippancy, or a lack of worry. That's bubbling up between them as he speaks.]
What do you need me to do for you? [It's all he can offer, but it's everything he can offer all at once.] To help.
It's not about him. [ She fusses at the tip of her hair. ] Who the fuck was he. Beyond some kid I felt die, then used him as an excuse to feel sorry for myself. Feel guilty that I didn't care. You ever get like that?
[ One would think she might've had conversations like this as a teenage girls, ten years ago, when all these feelings were fresh but-- She didn't. She didn't feel. It hadn't been practical to feel while Sparrows was still around, that was the kind of shit that broke girls. The smart ones knew it and turned it off. So who the fuck was she gonna talk feelings to? Nah. She'd put her energy into getting into their pants instead. ]
I just... I don't do real well when I don't... have a direction. Was raised in like this all girl's sorta military academy, kind of, long story. Aliens. We had broods then too, not like... not with the brain thing, but we were in groups of four and we took care of each other. Made me go to class and eat and sleep and I beat people up for them, cuz that's what I'm good at.
And then they were all dead. Aliens. You know that bit, with the aliens. But there was all this fuckin' rescue work to do and Therese was there and she made me eat and sleep and all that shit. But then she left because-- [ A huge blossoming pang of hurt. Nope, she doesn't want to talk about that, at all. ] She left. So I went back to the school, and there were the kids and they needed someone to teach them stuff and upkeep the fuckin' place and fuckin' find them and--
I don't... I don't know what to do here. Tell me. What to do. Please.
[Do you ever get like that? Confirmation flickers at the edges of his mind. He's no stranger to feeling sorry for himself, of feeling absolutely pitiful in the wake of loss. Lunafreya's face blossoms in his memory, thoughts of King Regis trail behind. He had outgrown self-pity years ago, or so he believed, but guilt always threatens to settle in from afar no matter his growth.
No need to verbally verify it for her. Noctis knows Annie can feel it thrum within him.]
...The brood. [A simplistic, almost plaintive statement.] The brood can offer you that, can't it? People to protect. A reason to keep going, making sure our missions end with success. [Or at least-] Or none of us dead.
[ But she's moving crawling to sit alongside him, and then flopping down, looking at him sideways with her head resting on her hand. ]
None of us asked for any of this shit, but I mean. I know I'm the fuckin' worst. Who the fuck thought I should have a bunch of people in my fuckin' head, I don't even fit in there sometimes.
[ A sigh. She knows, this is just feeling sorry for herself. ]
I'd never let anything happen to you, or the girls. Fuckin' ever. Not if I could do something about it.
[Noctis scoots over a little, giving her room. With anyone else, this would be awkward, someone this close to him on his bed -- but Annie is a broodmate, and with it comes an innate acceptance of shared space. He doesn't even give it a second thought.]
Come on, no one asked for anyone's shit. You didn't ask for mine, either. [His lips curl into something of a wry grin. It's faint, but there, barely lingering.] But we're stuck with each other now, and we're just going to have to deal with it the best way we can. We don't really have a choice in the matter.
I'll learn to deal with all that stuff in your brain. I've kind of... made it a goal of mine. So yeah, I'm not gonna go through all that effort just to have anything happen to any of us, so... [So basically, the feeling is mutual. Outwardly, he almost shrugs again.]
[He doesn't shy from the touch. It's nice, welcoming. It reassures him despite the conversation about nightmares and the inability to know how to deal with them.
He looks down at her, quirking a brow.]
Pretty sure all the tentacles could care less if I told them that. All they did was laugh at me and do a pretty good impression of a dead man.
[ She laughs sourly, muffled into the mattress, the spiderweb of her dyed hair falling over her face. ]
They laugh about everything, and their sense of humor fuckin' sucks. [ Although it's also kind of her sense of humor. A sigh. ] I dunno. If I knew how to get them to knock it off, I would. My dreams are always shitty. Mostly I just wouldn't sleep, coke's fuckin' great for not sleeping. But I don't do that anymore and when everybody else starts going down...
[ When he nudges her with his long years of sleep: clean and clear and cool. ]
There's only so much coffee. [ A plaintive addition: ] And the coffee here really sucks.
[He screws his face up a little at the mention of coffee. It's not unlike the look he gives a plate of mixed vegetables, an expression that's just barely holding back an audible "blegh".]
I'm not sure how anyone can drink that stuff everyday. It's too bitter and leaves a weird aftertaste.
[But criticisms about the coffee bean aside-] They're a part of you, though, aren't they? You'd think they'd be more... I don't know. Nicer?
[ Are they a part of her, or is she a part of them? Was she the life force inside of them, that which made them living as opposed to inert. Or were they beasts within the ecosystem that is she. He shouldn't ask questions like that, it sends her into that place that is too big for either of them. The cacophony of sentience between thousands -- millions upon millions -- of atoms and all that indefinable miracle which they build upon. How different is this, from what the full force of the Nest must be like? So many little voices, so many little working pieces, in a hierarchy up and up and up... But contained in just her, contained also in just her, rather than spaced out and balanced amongst a fair spread of minds. ]
Complicated. It's... both, more. [ Her fingers tighten around his. ] We're the same and we're separate and I'm more but I'm not. Their nature is my nature, I am their nature, their world, their air, their hearts-- but there's also Annie.
[He thinks he gets it, in that weird metaphysical way. That they're hers and she's theirs. An amalgamation of sorts, with far too many parts to really comprehend.
And honestly, Noctis doesn't try to comprehend it anymore. It's a futile effort (it's too big for what he is) and so the young king is fine with just learning how to live with whatever dwells within Annie. To acknowledge it without falling into that vast void with too many teeth, and to offer himself as an anchor point with whatever he can provide. Strength, sleep, calm. Sorrow, guilt, loss. The good with the bad.
In that way, maybe he really is a part of her now, a strange anomaly stranding still at the shore of her mind. He wonders if the same could be said for the rest of the brood.
Maybe he's just overthinking it.]
Well-
[He's going to lie down now, head on his pillow again, eyes looking upward. He hasn't moved his hand.]
If I'm going to be a part of the crowd, they need to realize that I really value my beauty rest. [Noct closes his eyes, as if to accentuate this.]
[ They can hear him. They chuckle and shuffle like a murder of crows on a wire, observing a world they do not have to be a part of with sly amusement. Maybe they'll respect this little king, one day, for now... they think he's fun. They think he will inevitably loosen her restraints, the way loss and affection always do. They've seen it before, her life in and her life out.
She'll be back, sooner or later, back to what she is meant to be, among them, of them. They can wait, and until then... like unruly children, they play with the boundaries, waiting to be beaten back.
Waiting for the right pressure that will see her shed her skin once more. ]
[ She closes her eyes with him, quiet in the artificial dark of this artificial sleep cycle. She can feel what shifts and snickers in the depths of her, but instead she focuses on where their hands touch, the subtle rhythm of his pulse there where the veins thread through. She only has one or two memories of moments like this, the nightmares had always driven everyone else off... But now there's no running from her. They have to sleep, they have to find a way, no amount of distance will save them at all.
He is a part of her, a current of clear soothing water through the muck.
She tries to stay there, in that clean place, breathing as he breathes, pulse at his pace. To sleep as he sleeps. ]
[The quiet rhythm of Annie's breathing is enough to push Noctis back into sleep mere minutes later. It's not unlike slipping back underwater, clear and cool, and he'll take her with him, gladly. Dragging her under, a gentle pull, like a child tugging at a sleeve. Having forgotten completely the reason why she visited in the first place, because all that matters now is rest.
Rest. He compels her with everything that he is, just rest now.]
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somnifacient) wrote2017-03-25 01:39 am
cw: suicide and addiction
no subject
Actual lucidity lags behind. He sits up, blinking away drowsiness, looking at Annie who's perched herself nearby.]
What's wrong?
[He's tired, but never tired enough to not be concerned.]
Talk to me.
no subject
Thinkin' about the dead kid. Sort of. Now that I say that I wish I'd known he was havin' such a hard time. Although. Not sure what I would have done. I've seen a lot of kids kill themselves. Like. I can count... probably 10 or 20 faces. In my head, I probably don't know their names. It happens when you push on them too hard. Or it doesn't and they're just living dead. We just drank a lot instead and made it all really far away so that we could handle it. I lost my shit at one of our chicks, cuz her fucking boozing got in my head and I almost like actually cried because of how much I just wanted to get shitfaced with her like I used to but I, uh.
[ Oh right. She's... talking to someone. She turns her head towards him, eyes big in her face. ]
Sorry, I... don't know how you stop someone from killing themselves. I'd do the same thing as him. But uhm, I wouldn't want to hurt you or the girls, like I can't get all the way there with the like saving you from myself thing because I know you'd have to die with me, like. With the brain bug thing.
[ The emotion she is feeling is vast and murky, unfiltered pond scum and muck. ]
The kids are all that stopped me, for a long time. Can't drink around them either, I feel guilty. Just... too guilty. And I don't want them to be like us, so strained that they just-- [ She closes her eyes. Dead girls in her head. ] So I don't, uhm, do any of that any more and it's pretty hard.
[ Pretty hard to get it into words too, she's never talked to anyone about it. She just did because she was in love with Therese and because she wanted to do the right thing and it twists in her. She doesn't know what's right, she doesn't know how to succeed, and that makes her feel... fragile. If she could just take that away with a few shots, everything would be fine but, but, but... She doesn't even know she's holding her breath, sweat on her forehead waiting to hear what Noctis thinks of her now. ]
no subject
He can at least make an effort, but it comes delayed, slogged with thought and consideration. It’s easier to let Annie’s anxiety twist within him, to let that settle in his core. This, at least, he can offer as confirmation that he’s not pushing her away out of discomfort — unpleasantness be damned.
There’s a lot to respond to, but he decides on one thing specifically for now.]
You can’t burden yourself with everyone’s well-being here. [He wonders briefly if that sounds cold, or if it's hypocritical of him. It isn’t how he means it, and in retrospect it doesn’t sound like a very kingly thing to say. He didn’t know the young man who died, but he feels the hole in the Nest just as prominently as the rest.
He tries to make an addendum.] It’s too much for one person. There’s too much out of your control — out of everyone’s control, and it’s not fair to yourself.
[And then, perhaps more importantly:] And I don’t ever want you hurting yourself, Annie. If it ever feels like it’s getting to that point, you come to me first. [He watches her expression carefully.]
no subject
[ She admits, exhaling that out. Her head thunks back against the wall, throat arched, eyes closed, mouth hanging open like she's been running for days. ]
I just care about you. M'always bad like that, get all wrapped up in somebody because I'm not good at-- [ She makes a helpless gesture with her hands, unable to articulate what she's bad at: being a person, friendship, love, relationships. ]
But I gotta make myself feel responsible for the girls. If I... If no one was relying on me, I dunno. I can't be in charge of myself.
[ Which is shitty and she knows it. She didn't used to know, that was the great thing about being high all the time. ]
no subject
[A shrug of a shoulder. He's not sure if he's getting the point across, but it's not surprising to him if he isn't -- but the gesture isn't to be mistaken for flippancy, or a lack of worry. That's bubbling up between them as he speaks.]
What do you need me to do for you? [It's all he can offer, but it's everything he can offer all at once.] To help.
no subject
[ One would think she might've had conversations like this as a teenage girls, ten years ago, when all these feelings were fresh but-- She didn't. She didn't feel. It hadn't been practical to feel while Sparrows was still around, that was the kind of shit that broke girls. The smart ones knew it and turned it off. So who the fuck was she gonna talk feelings to? Nah. She'd put her energy into getting into their pants instead. ]
I just... I don't do real well when I don't... have a direction. Was raised in like this all girl's sorta military academy, kind of, long story. Aliens. We had broods then too, not like... not with the brain thing, but we were in groups of four and we took care of each other. Made me go to class and eat and sleep and I beat people up for them, cuz that's what I'm good at.
And then they were all dead. Aliens. You know that bit, with the aliens. But there was all this fuckin' rescue work to do and Therese was there and she made me eat and sleep and all that shit. But then she left because-- [ A huge blossoming pang of hurt. Nope, she doesn't want to talk about that, at all. ] She left. So I went back to the school, and there were the kids and they needed someone to teach them stuff and upkeep the fuckin' place and fuckin' find them and--
I don't... I don't know what to do here. Tell me. What to do. Please.
no subject
No need to verbally verify it for her. Noctis knows Annie can feel it thrum within him.]
...The brood. [A simplistic, almost plaintive statement.] The brood can offer you that, can't it? People to protect. A reason to keep going, making sure our missions end with success. [Or at least-] Or none of us dead.
no subject
[ But she's moving crawling to sit alongside him, and then flopping down, looking at him sideways with her head resting on her hand. ]
None of us asked for any of this shit, but I mean. I know I'm the fuckin' worst. Who the fuck thought I should have a bunch of people in my fuckin' head, I don't even fit in there sometimes.
[ A sigh. She knows, this is just feeling sorry for herself. ]
I'd never let anything happen to you, or the girls. Fuckin' ever. Not if I could do something about it.
no subject
Come on, no one asked for anyone's shit. You didn't ask for mine, either. [His lips curl into something of a wry grin. It's faint, but there, barely lingering.] But we're stuck with each other now, and we're just going to have to deal with it the best way we can. We don't really have a choice in the matter.
I'll learn to deal with all that stuff in your brain. I've kind of... made it a goal of mine. So yeah, I'm not gonna go through all that effort just to have anything happen to any of us, so... [So basically, the feeling is mutual. Outwardly, he almost shrugs again.]
You know what I'm trying to say.
no subject
Sorry about whatever nightmares, I did that to people before the brain bug too...
[ She's not trying to say she knows exactly what she did to him, just that she knows that she does it. ]
no subject
[He brings a hand up to rub at his face, making a noise at the back of his throat that may sound like a groan.]
That was a lot of fun. [Sarcasm. Not hateful sarcasm, but definitely sarcasm.] Can we, just, not do that again?
no subject
[ She finds his hand when he lowers it from his face, lays cool fingertips across the back of his knuckles. ]
Just tell 'em to eat shit next time, I guess.
no subject
He looks down at her, quirking a brow.]
Pretty sure all the tentacles could care less if I told them that. All they did was laugh at me and do a pretty good impression of a dead man.
no subject
They laugh about everything, and their sense of humor fuckin' sucks. [ Although it's also kind of her sense of humor. A sigh. ] I dunno. If I knew how to get them to knock it off, I would. My dreams are always shitty. Mostly I just wouldn't sleep, coke's fuckin' great for not sleeping. But I don't do that anymore and when everybody else starts going down...
[ When he nudges her with his long years of sleep: clean and clear and cool. ]
There's only so much coffee. [ A plaintive addition: ] And the coffee here really sucks.
no subject
I'm not sure how anyone can drink that stuff everyday. It's too bitter and leaves a weird aftertaste.
[But criticisms about the coffee bean aside-] They're a part of you, though, aren't they? You'd think they'd be more... I don't know. Nicer?
no subject
[ Are they a part of her, or is she a part of them? Was she the life force inside of them, that which made them living as opposed to inert. Or were they beasts within the ecosystem that is she. He shouldn't ask questions like that, it sends her into that place that is too big for either of them. The cacophony of sentience between thousands -- millions upon millions -- of atoms and all that indefinable miracle which they build upon. How different is this, from what the full force of the Nest must be like? So many little voices, so many little working pieces, in a hierarchy up and up and up... But contained in just her, contained also in just her, rather than spaced out and balanced amongst a fair spread of minds. ]
Complicated. It's... both, more. [ Her fingers tighten around his. ] We're the same and we're separate and I'm more but I'm not. Their nature is my nature, I am their nature, their world, their air, their hearts-- but there's also Annie.
[ A huff of breath, and she mumbles, ]
And now there's you.
no subject
And honestly, Noctis doesn't try to comprehend it anymore. It's a futile effort (it's too big for what he is) and so the young king is fine with just learning how to live with whatever dwells within Annie. To acknowledge it without falling into that vast void with too many teeth, and to offer himself as an anchor point with whatever he can provide. Strength, sleep, calm. Sorrow, guilt, loss. The good with the bad.
In that way, maybe he really is a part of her now, a strange anomaly stranding still at the shore of her mind. He wonders if the same could be said for the rest of the brood.
Maybe he's just overthinking it.]
Well-
[He's going to lie down now, head on his pillow again, eyes looking upward. He hasn't moved his hand.]
If I'm going to be a part of the crowd, they need to realize that I really value my beauty rest. [Noct closes his eyes, as if to accentuate this.]
1/2
She'll be back, sooner or later, back to what she is meant to be, among them, of them. They can wait, and until then... like unruly children, they play with the boundaries, waiting to be beaten back.
Waiting for the right pressure that will see her shed her skin once more. ]
no subject
He is a part of her, a current of clear soothing water through the muck.
She tries to stay there, in that clean place, breathing as he breathes, pulse at his pace. To sleep as he sleeps. ]
no subject
Rest. He compels her with everything that he is, just rest now.]