snowblindrpg | [log] Did the devil say to you, you can make it through [closed]

Entry tags:

[log] Did the devil say to you, you can make it through [closed]

Characters: Steph, Zach, Al, Church, Luna, Kesara, Watson, Quark, Tifa
Location Building 58 and environs
Date: Days 157/158
Summary: A meeting of many people
Warnings: In comment headers, please!

58: A simple single-story building, the snow weighs uneasily on it, and it creaks and groans under the strain at the best of times. It's very dark, and only the kitchen and living room are intact. The kitchen has a back door. Two snowmen have been built outside. A message has been written on the wall in blue ink: "Don't wreck the snowmen! That's super mean!" "ALPHONSE ELRIC, MAMI TOMOE, FREYA CRESCENT, GREED, EDWARD ELRIC, STEPHANIE BROWN, DAY FORTY ONE, TRAVELLING EAST." has been carved into one of the walls. The following has been written on the wall in blue pen: "This is Building 95 97 on the composite map. Contact @CaptSteveRogers for details." Underneath this is a fairly accurate map showing the house in relation to the school and buildings 29, 35, 35, 37, 40, 41, 47, 48, 50, 53. House 34 is labeled "Medical assistance; hot, clean water. Contact Dr. Epps @claytonator". The school is labeled "School. Food available in cafeteria; DO NOT STAY HERE OVERNIGHT." The shed is labeled "Shed".

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A - Happy Smol Tiems

[It's early on in the evening, and Kesara is practically floating. It's been some time since she'd been in the company of so many people and able to enjoy it. Seeing Zach alive again, feeling him alive, hugging him, being near and basking in his warmth, him and Steph reunited - it's like a blanket of light over her, making her beam wherever she goes, whenever she talks.

She goes about the house, searching and scavenging with great enthusiasm, and she has questions and kind, smiling comments for everyone she meets there, even those she's never met before. She's happy to come up to anyone with a small wave of hullo! It's lovely to finally meet you!, and she's just as happy to share her little finds.]

Look, I found these stretchy bands! What are they for? And this?

[Even if the finds in question are just a few rubber bands and a TV remote without batteries. It's the thought that counts.]

B - The one with the intense grief/kid in distress CW

[And then, not that much later that night, everything breaks.

Kesara is sitting on a commandeered surface, tapping away at her tablet, when Alfie's message comes through. It makes her freeze. Suddenly, like the slamming of a door, her face empties. Her muscles go rigid. Even her breathing stops.

When movement begins again everything about her is different. She takes the tablet in one tremulous, straining hand, throws herself to her feet, grabs the backpack lying next to her. Storms out of everyone's way. Hurls herself into an empty room and hurls its door closed.

But even burying her face in the backpack, even closing the door, can only muffle so much of her screams.]

[He had no idea what had happened. She'd been so happy, relieved to be here, and so had Zach; he had her back, and he felt right - even with the blindness, it felt right to be with both Kes and Steph, now.

But then, it's like she goes cold. In seconds, just mere seconds, she'd gone from being her normal self to - being broken. And Zach could feel it, without even being able to see her, he could just feel it from the way she tensed up next to him, how she went hard and stiff and quiet. And then she'd walked off, and then - the screaming.

Zach was up in a second, possibly knocking over furniture, but he didn't really care; he didn't think anybody else cared, either. He walked towards the noise that he knew was Kesara, the door between them. He rasped his knuckles against it, giving her a moment, before walking in, and closing the door behind him. He sat right against it, not knowing where she was, he just sat there, staring at nothing, waiting.

Waiting for Kesara to be ready to talk.]

[One minute. Five. Ten. The screaming eventually stops, but the silence that follows - interrupted by occasional murmuring, Kesara speaks very low inside - is dark and brittle, like it might collapse any moment into shards of glass. That is what she feels like when she finally opens the door. Like she's swallowed a bagful of broken glass, that scraped her throat and tore her heart to shreds.

She has Zach back. She stares at him, half-numb, as he opens the door. The sight of him should soothe everything, every pain, because he came back to her. But coming back doesn't mean death hasn't happened. That is what death means.

Two deaths, vile and violent and meaningless. In seventy-two hours. Two of the people she holds dearest in the town and in the world. It's too much. It's too much. She's too small to swallow so much glass.

She stumbles over to Zach, tablet left discarded in the corner, and bodily collapses against him. She throws her arms about his neck, buries her face in his chest, and shivers like a little wounded animal.]

[He's not sure he wants to ask what happened. He sits there for a moment, ears straining to understand what she's murmuring - failing at it - and then he hears her move. He braces himself, and indeed here she is, collapsing against him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her face to his collarbone.

He holds her to him, not making a sound for a while, just allowing her to be upset if she wants to. God knows he allows himself that right, and he's not an 11 year old thrust into the shittiest place on Earth. He rests his cheek on top of her head, hoping to be as reassuring a presence to her as possible.]

You wanna tell me?

[It's just a whisper, as gentle as he can make it.]

Mr. Solomons died.

[Her voice is flat, hoarse from the screaming, wooden. Like it's detached from her tears and shivering. It was the same after she'd screamed herself out at Zach's death, after she was done sobbing and the screaming came. A part of her numbly notes that this is a good trick. Scream until something breaks and freezes inside.]

It was stupid. He fell. He was hurt. They couldn't stop the bleeding. He called to talk to me before it ended. He was in a lot of pain and it was slow.

[She can't convey the horror of it with her voice. So she goes into details. It's like giving a report. Every word she speaks feels more detached, and easier in a sick way. But colder. Her shivering gets worse. She presses herself desperately into the warmth of his grip.]

[Ah, shit. Zach squeezes her a little tighter when she says it; he had no idea, but now it's no surprise anymore why she reacted like that.]

I'm sorry, Kes. I'm sorry.

[Zach, himself, isn't extraordinarily upset by the news. There's the fact that he wants to be strong and hold himself together for Kesara, but it's also...it just makes him feel kind of numb. This goddamn place that keeps on killing people whenever they're trying to do something good. This goddamn place that rewards people like the Joker. Just. This goddamn place.]

Maybe he wanted to talk to you for comfort. Maybe knowing you were okay, that helped him.

[He's pretty sure that's not going to be comforting to her, so he just holds her a little tighter, gathering her up in his arms to give her something, something real and alive.]

[His warmth should help. It should. Like saying the right things to Steph when they'd spoken after his death was supposed to help. She doesn't know why it doesn't and it terrifies her. Her mind whirls with sick thoughts. That talk with Steph had only been a few days ago. She can hear Steph's hollow voice so clearly in her mind. She can practically hear it.]

No, stop... [she mumbles at it, whimpering as it fills her ears. She hadn't said anything good to Steph. She hadn't helped her like she hadn't really helped Alfie. She knows that, she's sure of that. There is no helping. Even if someone comes back, that is what death means...]

I'm sorry, Zach! [She suddenly wails.] I'm sorry I couldn't talk to you when you - when you - I'm sorry I couldn't help!

Oh, hey, hey, no, don't go there. [There's nothing more that Zach can do; he's holding her but he can't look at her in the eye and promise her it's better that way.

He's glad, she didn't have to suffer through his last few breaths. It wears on him enough that Steph had too, he's glad Kes didn't have to. It's much better like this. He frowns, kissing the top of her head, completely absent-mindedly.]

I'm glad you didn't have to see it. I wouldn't have wanted you to - it's better like this, you know? I'm sorry I didn't get to - to tell you, I guess. I'd have liked to say goodbye. But I'm back, and I'm fine. There's no need for that, okay? No reason for you to apologize.

[Taking a deep breath, he rubs a hand along her good arm. He's the one that's been apologizing, and with good reason; he's the one who left her.]

I was thinking, if I hadn't left you and the tunnels, I might not have died. But I also wouldn't have Steph right now. So even though I...did die, I'm not. I don't regret it.

[He's not sure why he's saying any of that, but now that he's started, he can't really stop. Maybe it will change her mind enough.]

But I did miss you tons, and I'm glad we're back together now.

[It takes a long moment for his comforting words to pierce through the waves in her ears, for the now to drown out those moments that she knows will stay with her as long as she lives. But Zach's voice makes it. Zach's kiss to her hair makes it. Dame Ariel had kissed her head in comfort - once, when she returned after her teacher had been sure she'd died. No one else ever has, since she'd left Simla, half her life ago.]

I should've come with you, [she mumbles, meaning it, but pulled back slowly from the raw edge of pain. Slowly. It'll take time; it's pierced her through, again through a wound that hadn't healed.] I should have... but maybe it won't have mattered... we could have died in the tunnels, or on the way, or together in the school, or - anywhere...

[He doesn't regret it, he says. Does he mean that? Can you not regret dying? She knows, in theory, that there are things worth dying for. And he must love Steph enormously. But she doesn't want to die, and the thought of him dying again makes her so violently sick that she gives a dangerous little hiccough, swallowing hard around it.]

I'm never leaving you again, do you hear? Never never. You are stuck with me and you can't do a thing about it and - and - [she swallows again.] And Steph will have to not mind it.

[He can feel the fondest of smiles on her face as she talks, even though she sounds so raw, so pained. It what she says, because he agrees, they could have died anywhere, both of them, and he's glad it was only him. He's glad he saved Steph, he's glad Kesara wasn't there and didn't see him die.]

We could have. But it was just me, and you know what? I'm glad. I'm glad because you and Steph are fine. You get that, don't you? I'd die for you.

[He's not sure that will please her - as he gets to know her more and more he knows that it's the kind of thing that angers her more than it makes her feel better, but it's his truth, and he's not good at lying to her.]

And I'd die for Steph, too. Technically, I sort of did.

[He shrugs a little, his cheek to the top of her head. His smile is back, and it's making his cheek hurt a little, in the best way.]

That's good, because I don't plan on leaving you either. And I mean that about both of you. She'll be fine. I'm sure she'll learn to like you as much as I do.

[Al is less than happy.

It's good to see Steph again, and know he helped reunite everyone, but he's been slowly breaking apart these past few days. He hides it well, however, and he's definitely not about to show it to a kid he doesn't know very well at all.

So he chuckles when she holds up the rubber bands, looking down from his massive height (wow, she's smaller than Ed!) to examine them.]

They're used to hold things together, usually document pages. Don't you have them where you're from?

[Kesara looks up... and up, and up, until her neck cricks and her eyes gape round. No amount of seeing him around the house, or with the others, could have prepared her for this face to face encounter with the hulking suit of armour who has a boy's voice.

She isn't frightened, not really, because few things are as frightening anymore as crawling between frozen bodies in the dark - it was a good trial by fire, she thinks to herself - but she still backs a bit, instinctively. When he's this close, she has to look so far up that she nearly sends herself, kitten-like, into a backflip.]

Oah, you - we - we have these elastics, but they were never very good, before Mr. Goodyear patented his process last year...

[He's used to being taller than everyone around him, and it's not exactly hard to see that she's a little intimidated by it. So he crouches down in front of her, putting his helmet more on eye level so she doesn't have to crane her neck up.]

Mm, they're not used a lot where I'm from, but we do have them.

[A little bit of mischief enters his voice.]

They don't just hold documents together-- here, give me one and I'll show you.

[He can make himself less tall, but not less enormous. With that helmet on eye level, Kesara can see the size of it up close, the metal, the spike. The eyes. Good lord, why does he sound like a boy?

She can tell he's trying not to frighten her, though. And she decides he deserves a fair chance. Part of her reflects that if he wanted to hurt her, no one at all could do anything about it.]

I don't have so many, so please don't ruin it, [she says meekly, but she does hand over a rubber band, holding it out and watching closely to see how his huge fingers move.]

[His fingers move with all the dexterity of a normal hand as he carefully takes the band from Kesara and holds it up. He winds it round one finger and then uses his other hand to pull it back, before releasing it so that it flies across the room and pings on the door.]

I used to fire them at my brother all the time when I wanted to annoy him, they make surprisingly good little weapons.

[FOR PLAYING ONLY.]

[She is so fascinated by watching his hands that she doesn't understand what he means to do until he does it. When the band goes flying she's startled into an embarrassing recoil. Her head darts to the side to follow the trajectory of the shot. When she looks back to him her eyes are huge again, but this time not with alarm but with the utter delight of a horrible brat taught a horrible new trick.]

It's like a tiny slingshot! How far can they fly? Do they hurt when they hit? Can they break things?

[He laughs at her delight, not at all sorry to have given her a new way to be a demon child. At least it means she doesn't look as scared of him any more.]

They sting, and I guess you could hurt someone if you hit them in the eye, but they can't do any real damage. You can't get them that far either. Here-- why don't you try hitting me with it? I won't get hurt and you can practise your aim.

[The sound of laughter coming out of that massive armoured suit almost startles her again. She glances up quick, looking at his eyes, his mouth - neither changing in the mask of the face - but she hesitates just slightly before smiling. She holds up a shy hand with another rubber band twined in her fingers.]

Would it really not hurt? I heard you can - I heard the Joker injured you. So maybe this metal is not as strong as it used to be.

[Oh. Ouch.

He chuckles, though it sounds just a little forced, and waves a hand dismissively.]

Oh-- oh no, please don't worry, I wasn't hurt badly at all. People were just worrying over nothing, and I promise a rubber band won't do anything to me.

[This is a lie. He's still heavily scarred under the scarf he wears to conceal his eyes. But she doesn't need to know that.]

[An attentive child, Kesara notices that faintly forced tone. Does this mean the rubber band would hurt? No; chances are it means something much more sinister.

What does it look like, when armour bleeds?

She's a little frightened of herself when she thinks the question, giving the tiniest flinch. It is very definitely not one she can ask him, however much she might burn to. Much better to occupy herself with the little slip of rubber and stretch it like he did - aim -

The band slips too early, snaps back, and flicks Kesara's own thumb. She howls, in shock rather than real pain.]

Ow!!

[It startles him when she yells and he jumps, a clatter of metal clanging out through the room when he comes down. It's impossible for him to hide when he's surprised because of things like this, it's a little annoying.

He recovers quickly, kneeling beside her.]

Hey-- hey, it's okay. You just released it the wrong way, that's all.

[He reaches out to try and take her hand in his.]

It'll just sting for a moment, but you'll be fine. Okay? Look at me, you're fine.

[Kesara recovers from the initial shock in no more than a heartbeat, but Al's jump and the crash that follows startles her a second time, and she lets out another tiny yelp. And there is the cold metal of his hands, as she's too confused for a moment to pull back, and they are suddenly face to face, and she blinks at him.

And promptly starts giggling.]

It's only a little sting! Don't get so frightened, Alphonse.

[The giggle just freezes him in place for a moment, before he starts laughing along with her, though it's edged with a slight hint of weariness underneath.]

Y-Yeah, I guess you're right. Sorry, it's just been kind of tense lately, any screaming isn't usually a good sign.

[He releases her fingers and stands up.]

Why don't you try again? Be more careful this time.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[log] Did the devil say to you, you can make it through [closed]

no subject

B

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

A a million years late

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject