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patheticvillain) wrote2015-06-26 09:09 pm
patheticvillain) wrote2015-06-26 09:09 pm
fifty-five ➢ spam & voice
private } mickey
Hey. You busy?
private } beyond
Got something for you.
spam
[Recovering from being disemboweled physically took about forty-five seconds. Recovering psychologically is taking a little bit longer. Cassel takes comfort in simple tasks and routines in the meantime, trying not to think about what happened with Creed or what happened in the Enclosure or what's going to happen next. There's this feeling like the other shoe is going to drop - not uncommon on the Barge, but not something he wants to deal with, either.]
[During the day, when he's not in the gym, he spends time in his room or in the common rooms with yarn in his lap, curled up in an armchair, knitting and purling on autopilot. He has no idea what he's making, which is usually how he goes about things. Eventually he casts off and picks it up, examining it in the light. It appears to be a tiny sweater with at least three arms.]
[He never said he was good at this.]
[At night, a lithe black cat roams the halls. To Cassel's credit, this time he's wearing a little blue collar with a name tag. On the other hand, it took him this long to come up with that, so maybe he's not so smart after all. He curls up on the backs of couches, winds between people's legs, and wanders into cabins behind their occupants, purring loudly and very insistently.]
Hey. You busy?
private } beyond
Got something for you.
spam
[Recovering from being disemboweled physically took about forty-five seconds. Recovering psychologically is taking a little bit longer. Cassel takes comfort in simple tasks and routines in the meantime, trying not to think about what happened with Creed or what happened in the Enclosure or what's going to happen next. There's this feeling like the other shoe is going to drop - not uncommon on the Barge, but not something he wants to deal with, either.]
[During the day, when he's not in the gym, he spends time in his room or in the common rooms with yarn in his lap, curled up in an armchair, knitting and purling on autopilot. He has no idea what he's making, which is usually how he goes about things. Eventually he casts off and picks it up, examining it in the light. It appears to be a tiny sweater with at least three arms.]
[He never said he was good at this.]
[At night, a lithe black cat roams the halls. To Cassel's credit, this time he's wearing a little blue collar with a name tag. On the other hand, it took him this long to come up with that, so maybe he's not so smart after all. He curls up on the backs of couches, winds between people's legs, and wanders into cabins behind their occupants, purring loudly and very insistently.]
action.
[and beyond is just overwrought enough to offer another small piece of truth to cassel, not so much intended in the sense of sharing, but meant as a push to drive the boy away. he turns to cassel, unblinking eyes fringed with damp lashes.]
I set myself on fire.
[his expression is mostly impassive, but there's something of a dare there, too - how well do you like me now?]
action.
[He slumps back in his seat, drags his hand down his face.]
Then why'd you take the stupid cigarette, man?
action.
... I don't know.
[because you offered. because i didn't know that would happen.]
I didn't think it would matter.
action.
Nothing matters, right? Okay.
[He imagines, just for a minute, what it would be like to be engulfed in flame: to feel it eating at you, killing you slowly. He imagines it must be one of the slowest ways to die, and wonders why that, of all things - but he doesn't ask. Instead:]
You had to stay alive after that? It must've. Hurt.
[A painful understatement.]
action.
[an iv drip, dulling his brain. but beyond doesn't refute cassel's statement outright - the sting of defeat was certainly painful.]
I've suffered worse.
[losing his mother, as a small child - that hurt more.
uncovering the truth at the House, before he left - that hurt more, too.]
action.
Suffering worse doesn't make it not suffering.
[He tries not to wallow anymore, but that doesn't mean he succeeds - and now he's remembering every awful thing he's experienced, every hurt, every death. Trying to rank them just makes him dizzy. He doesn't know if he could. He doesn't know if he could distance himself the way Beyond has.]
action.
[he takes a deep breath and turns back to face the boy, both hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans. he recites:]
"Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering."
[beyond doesn't so much distance himself from the things that cause him pain - he bottles everything up inside to simmer under a dispassionate exterior.]
action.
[He exhales smoke, eyes Beyond carefully.]
If you believe that, why are you so pissed about being used?
action.
[his eyes narrow at cassel's question.]
I wasn't used. I was lied to. [and used, but it's the former that beyond counts as the greater injury.]
action.
But you're still angry. If everything is suffering, why does it matter?
action.
[beyond feels a flicker of anger shoot up his spine, spreading all the way through to his fingertips. cassel's line of questioning is beginning to veer too closely into confrontation, and beyond suddenly regrets ever being honest with the boy.]
I thought you weren't trying to manage me.
action.
[Sometimes friends have to call each other on their bullshit, he thinks, doesn't say. Instead he focuses on the ash forming at the end of his cigarette and stops asking questions.]
Anyway, I already told you. I have someone to manage.
action.
[the beyond doth protest too much. he pulls his hands out of his pockets, folds his arms across his chest, an unconscious gesture of defiance. he shifts his gaze from cassel to scan the horizon instead.]
Where is this place?
action.
[He glances behind him at the screen door, ratty and thin. A correction:]
It's where I grew up.
action.
Do you miss being here?
action.
[Another startlingly honest answer. He never tells people this. It is the truth, though; despite the chaos and the hatred and the pain, he will always miss his family.]
I'm scared of going back, but sometimes I want to anyway. It doesn't make sense - like, if I had any instinct of self-preservation at all I'd just stay here - but I miss my mom. My brothers, too.
Last time I tried to go back it didn't go so well, though.
action.
Why would you want to go back to the people who hurt you?
action.
Because I love them. I can't just . . . turn that off.
action.
I'm afraid I can't understand that, Cassel.
[love only leads to loss and pain, in his experience. better to do without.]
action.
I've met a lot of people who couldn't understand. Sometimes I don't really understand it either. But I feel less empty loving people than I do all by myself.
action.
but that doesn't mean he doesn't wish he could.]
Could I try that again? [he nods, indicating cassel's cigarette. somehow, feeling as if he's on fire again seems preferable to beyond's current state.]
action.
[If there's one thing he can do, it is take at least half of the trip with Beyond, and the only way he knows how to do that is this: instead of lighting a new one, he wordlessly holds out his cigarette instead, remembering the way he and Mickey share, a family thing. It's too early to accept Beyond as part of his family, and he knows it wouldn't be accepted if he offered, but that sense of sharing, of intimacy, is important to him all the same.]
action.
he hands the cigarette back to cassel and wordlessly sits in the chair next to him.]
action.
[He would be bowled over by his own strength of feeling if he didn't understand by now that he is unpredictable, that his own capacity for love is dangerous. As it is, he takes the cigarette back and flicks ash off the end reflexively, then looks out across the eerily empty landscape.]
Did that help?
[Does hurting help?]
action.
[beyond nods, bringing his fingers up to the underside of his nose, slowly inhaling the ashen scent that lingers on his skin. he finds it somehow familiar, calming.]
Yes. Thank you, Cassel.
action.
action.