002 // text; username: grollschwert

[hauntedsavior]

cw: chronic illness, ruminations on death

Fun one for you tonight.

[this message comes in the middle of the night, when no one in their right mind should be awake. but that's never stopped anna. she can't sleep, and if flynn and ruby and everybody are right then she has to at least try not to keep this stuff inside her at all times. sorrow's silence we needn't bear, or whatever.]

You know a girl. Her body is breaking down and her meds are failing her.
She has years left. Maybe months, if it gets worse.
But something happens, and she gets access to amazing new technology. Things that prevent her body from attacking itself.
Things that stop her timer from ticking faster than everyone else's.
Great, right?
You get to know her better. You entertain her little crush on you. Maybe you like her back a little and maybe things aren't gonna be so bad.

But one day, you do something.
Something that sets off a chain of events that you couldn't have predicted. Not in a million years.
Small things collide into medium things collide into big huge massive things.
And after the butterfly version of you is done flapping its wings, she doesn't have access to that technology anymore.
She's back on the timer.

She doesn't know you did anything.
She never finds out.
You can't bring yourself to tell her, and she wouldn't believe it if you did.

She barely recognizes you anymore, by the end of it.
Her family finds your name on her phone and invites you to pay respects.

Do you still go to her funeral?

Did you kill her?

Comments

private;

[hauntedsavior]

Got it in one, NP.
The disease didn't take her memory. The city did.
At least, I was pretty sure it took everything, but now... I don't know.
Bringing it to everyone here is kind of making me wonder how much I took for granted.

Anyway. Fire away.

Re: private;

[threelayers]

We used to have the same problem in the nightmare.
It wouldn't happen all the time, but it would still happen from time to time.
Of course, they were physically coming back so it felt weirder.
The shit you described? Was seriously awful.

So, my answer is "No, you didn't kill her."
But at the same time, there's always going to be a piece of you who won't forgive yourself.
It's always going to wonder what you could have done differently.
It eats you up inside the more you care about them, because you didn't want to lose them.
And you basically lost them not once, but twice.

That kind of pain doesn't just go away, and it craves someone to blame.
Mirrors are convenient for that sort of thing.

But you didn't kill her, or cause her death.
I'm just going to go out on a limb with that one.

private;

[hauntedsavior]

Jesus.

[it's the part about losing her twice that gets her. she is. tired of losing people. and now everyone she's lost is gone to her again, whether they've died, whether they're still alive but a world away. she is mourning more than she has even realized yet.]

Do you think about this kind of stuff a lot?
You know, while you're hiding your face?

Re: private;

[threelayers]

One of the reasons I hide my face, girl.

I spent the last two or three years of my life before coming to the dream mourning.
I hated myself, hated the people involved in someone's death, hated the world for letting it happen.
I got real damned good at hating a whole lot of shit while smiling away like it's all fine.
You would not believe how much anger you can put into skipping.

Which is actually not a joke, believe it or not.

Your pain's not like mine.
It's more just raw tragedy and loss, instead of rage and fury, but the pain's similar.
It will get better, because "Time heals all wounds" isn't total bullshit.
But you're probably going to be pretty raw for a while, especially since we aren't there.
Kind of hard to get closure here, especially since the nightmare's version of closure never works.

private;

[hauntedsavior]

How the hell are all these people a decade younger than me better at this than I am.

[she kind of knows the answer, but. it's rhetorical, and she will allow it to be rhetorical for as long as it takes.]

What'd that British chick say?
Time's supposed to heal you but I ain't done much healing?
Christ, NP, I could be here all night bitching about how many people are still only alive in my head.
Whether they died for real or if I'm just completely separated them for the rest of my life.

Re: private;

[threelayers]

I cheat.
I am a disguise, and I have made several lifetimes of shitty choices to regret.
You don't actually really want to be better at this than me, do ya?

Yeah, you're sitting right there on the basic problem.
You're not able to get closure with any of these people, for one reason or another.
And as much as closure is really fucking overrated, it still feels at least a little good at times to get it.
And this town's going to have a habit of rubbing your nose in it, believe me.
Which you should already know by now.

Booze helps a little.

private; cw: substance abuse

[hauntedsavior]

Been down that road before.
I really hope you didn't think this was the first time I've dealt with crippling depression, 'cause this is gonna get heavy, kid.

[she doesn't have to go into this much detail. she really, really doesn't. but in the spirit of getting things off her chest, she's typing anyway.]

After I broke up with Rose, there was... god, a solid four or five years,
Where I spent nearly every long, lonely night getting high and drinking myself into a stupor.
I would get jobs that didn't drug test just so I could have money to keep myself in booze and weed.
Five years straight of living inside my own head, hoping that if I smoked enough weed and blacked out enough, I'd finally forget how much it hurt.

I got better at managing it. Found a place that did test.
Cut the weed, cut the booze. Replaced it with the gym and normal cigs.
Really had to kick my own ass if I wanted to keep the job, but I stuck with it.
Then I started getting robot parts and the chemicals stopped working on me anyway. Even nicotine.
And before I got brought here, I was close to three years completely stone cold sober.

[she takes a second and pulls up her calendar, and groans wearily as she remembers the night her heart was stolen from her. not a metaphor.]

Would've been three years last Monday.
I can't go back to the way things used to be.
So I need to find another way to handle this.

[threelayers]

Ah, yeah, that's definitely getting into dark territory there.
So, uh, I know a guy you oughta talk to.
You and he could probably go a few rounds on that sort of thing, but he's been getting past that shit too.
I'd say he could use someone to talk to and you sound like you need it a lot too.

Don't tell Qrow I told you to go see him, but let's just say he has his bad days too.
If you've been staying clean this long, he'd probably appreciate the perspective.

But, as for the rest? It kind of sounds like I'm telling you a lot of shit you already know.
It does get better, but you have to find a way to not dwell on it.
It's a wound that festers the more we pick at it after all.

glad you're staying sober, though, by the sounds of it.
I'm mostly a light drinker myself.
It never helped much for me anyway.

[hauntedsavior]

Ha, well.
Thanks for believing that I'm still sober after three years, but after the Black Parade, the wagon left me way the hell behind.

Me and Qrow actually talked a bit. About what Deer was like.
He basically screamed Remnant from the second I ran into his post.
(Brought you up and he reacted about as well as you could expect someone bringing up the chick who stabbed his niece.
Not that I get the vibe that you're gonna keep doing that or anything.)

He struck me as a dude with a lot of shit inside him.
Maybe I'll fire something off his way.

[threelayers]

Of course you've already met him, heh.
Well, I'm going to count it as a victory that you're still talking to me afterwards.
He's got some pretty good reason not to trust me as you well know.

I don't know most of what's going on in his head, but I know he's got his darkness chasing him.
He'd probably appreciate having someone he can talk with.

But if you want any help keeping on the wagon, I used to be a bouncer, so I can help.
Honestly, I'd probably be willing to help out most ways right about now.
You seem a good sort.

And no, no stabbings of Red.
those days are beyond me at this point.

[hauntedsavior]

No offense, NP.
But I am dealing with way too much of my own shit to try to take a stance on which of you are good and bad to talk to.
I am not getting involved in personal crap between all of you guys that I know nothing about.

How is bouncing gonna stop?
You gonna camp out in front of the liquor store and turn me away at the door?

[threelayers]

Fair.

I can if you want.
I can also just quietly break into your place at night and steal the bottles.
It's what friends do when they don't have anything close to boundaries.

[That second one was probably a joke.]

[hauntedsavior]

Don't do that.
I have enough self-control for that.

[do you?]

And I have boundaries, too. Just 'cause I'm having a breakdown doesn't mean boundaries stop existing.

[threelayers]

I trust you on that.
Also.
It's not actually my business.
We're still becoming friends and I shouldn't push this much.

Yeah, same.
Always feel free to tell me to fuck off.
You're allowed.

[hauntedsavior]

If you need to fuck off, I'll tell you to fuck off.

[if she really wanted anyone to fuck off, she would've said as much by now. but.]

You shouldn't trust me about the booze, but I appreciate the vote of confidence.
Just let me keep my cigarettes.
They're not hurting me. And I look cool as shit when I'm smoking.

[threelayers]

<font face=I'll step in if it kind of looks like you need it. But don't worry about the cigarettes. I'm totally used to the smoke after all. Lived around cigars for years after all.

[hauntedsavior]

Yeah, well. Nicer person than you might've tried to take them from me just 'cause they're bad for me.
Keep forgetting you're the right kind of shitty little asshole to know how to leave well enough alone.

[threelayers]

Life's full of things that are bad for you.
One of these days, we're all going to hit the end of our story.
You're just picking your path as far as I'm concerned.
I don't judge there.

But yep. I do try to do that when I can.

[hauntedsavior]

Yeah.
Let's just hope our endings take some time to get here.
Even though we both know it never works that way.

[threelayers]

It never works the way you planned it, no.
But I'm just taking it a day at a time and enjoying the ride while I can.
In my own way.

[hauntedsavior]

Yeah.
Hope you can actually squeeze some real enjoyment out of it, NP. However you decide to do it.
We'd never know.

[threelayers]

I will.
You do it too.
You should be happy, Anna.
I do mean that.

[hauntedsavior]

[she doesn't know how to actually reply to that. someone telling her she should be happy. like it's something she deserves without having to do anything for it. right now, her brain can't let her believe it. maybe it will in the morning. unfortunately for NP, all she gets is:]

[✓ Read.]