[she's not prepared for that. had she been prepared for any of this? not at all. it's like how she only half looks before she leaps because she knows the lay of the land - or expects she knows. she's rarely been tripped up in that respect, even here it's been the easiest learning curve of everything.
this is not that.
she's given a few surprise hugs in her time here so far. (okay one, to be exact soon to be two) and it's been her initiative - tight, spontaneous near-lifting off the ground kinds of hugs - but this is not the clap of hands on her back, the pat-pat-pat that sometimes accompanies. this is not---
(it had taken so much time and time was all she had, except for her thoughts, which were as dark and stark and interconnected as the lines she'd channeled them into - memory interlocking with memory - some gone up in puffs of smoke but never truly gone - some so tight, so focused they may as well have been graven there in bone instead of skin - the puffs like rising steam to keep it down, to keep it in, to push through it - and some a distant, impossible hope - a flare in the dark - a hiss of smoke that might never come no matter how many shitty nights she spent on that freezing floor wishing she'd done things differently.
she had still been a child, but she'd had vague ideas of what kind of tattoo she might get someday - people she'd seen come in and out of the last drop, some of them were marked in ways that made them look more dangerous - others were just dangerous looking in the first place - and the addendum to that: this kind of overkill.
it's the machine she's become, it's a testament to her own trials, to powder, too - because that's the memory that has pushed her through those nights, those days, those beatings - the constant replay of the same night over and over and trying - so often failing - to imagine a different ending - the burden and weight of it on her back both literally and metaphorically - this is the machine that powder built.)
---it's not unwelcome. but it's unexpected, and she's suddenly holding her breath again as a finger traces a line - and words follow suit. soft words to mirror a soft touch - and vi is used to neither.
a surprise exhale when saeri moves closer, and a small space of silence hangs before she speaks. it is soft, too.]
And when life tries to make us something else, something we don't want? When it tries to define us differently? We look it in the eyes and say hell no. It's like you said before. we defy its expectations. It says give up. I say 'make me'.
[she'll turn, it's not quick or practiced - it's also a surprise, her guard's dropped to a level she's also not prepared for, but she rolls with that, because (also surprisingly) this feels like a safe zone. for her, there have not been many of those.]
Yeah, I knew.
[and when she's fully turned, she leans as close as saeri might allow, and rests her forehead against the girl's chin - it would have been her forehead had vi been taller. the last little bit of air huffs out like a sputtering blue flare.]
no subject
this is not that.
she's given a few surprise hugs in her time here so far. (okay one, to be exact soon to be two) and it's been her initiative - tight, spontaneous near-lifting off the ground kinds of hugs - but this is not the clap of hands on her back, the pat-pat-pat that sometimes accompanies. this is not---
(it had taken so much time and time was all she had, except for her thoughts, which were as dark and stark and interconnected as the lines she'd channeled them into - memory interlocking with memory - some gone up in puffs of smoke but never truly gone - some so tight, so focused they may as well have been graven there in bone instead of skin - the puffs like rising steam to keep it down, to keep it in, to push through it - and some a distant, impossible hope - a flare in the dark - a hiss of smoke that might never come no matter how many shitty nights she spent on that freezing floor wishing she'd done things differently.
she had still been a child, but she'd had vague ideas of what kind of tattoo she might get someday - people she'd seen come in and out of the last drop, some of them were marked in ways that made them look more dangerous - others were just dangerous looking in the first place - and the addendum to that: this kind of overkill.
it's the machine she's become, it's a testament to her own trials, to powder, too - because that's the memory that has pushed her through those nights, those days, those beatings - the constant replay of the same night over and over and trying - so often failing - to imagine a different ending - the burden and weight of it on her back both literally and metaphorically - this is the machine that powder built.)
---it's not unwelcome. but it's unexpected, and she's suddenly holding her breath again as a finger traces a line - and words follow suit. soft words to mirror a soft touch - and vi is used to neither.
a surprise exhale when saeri moves closer, and a small space of silence hangs before she speaks. it is soft, too.]
And when life tries to make us something else, something we don't want? When it tries to define us differently? We look it in the eyes and say hell no. It's like you said before. we defy its expectations. It says give up. I say 'make me'.
[she'll turn, it's not quick or practiced - it's also a surprise, her guard's dropped to a level she's also not prepared for, but she rolls with that, because (also surprisingly) this feels like a safe zone. for her, there have not been many of those.]
Yeah, I knew.
[and when she's fully turned, she leans as close as saeri might allow, and rests her forehead against the girl's chin - it would have been her forehead had vi been taller. the last little bit of air huffs out like a sputtering blue flare.]