Room 324, Tuesday Afternoon
Nov. 29th, 2011 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wwiiiOkay. Things. There were things happening, and Warren needed to... to do something about them. Frat had been skipped last week because of the holiday, and this week, after losing his entire world, he just hadn't had it in him to coordinate anything resembling fun and games. He'd meant to go to the library to help research over the weekend, and that hadn't happened, and he couldn't really remember the last time he'd eaten, though he was vaguely aware of stumbling off to raid common room fridges at least a couple of times in there.
It was stupid. He hadn't so much as thought about going home in the past two years, and now that it was gone...
He needed to be doing things, but he had no idea where to start. So he just kind of cuddled Thor and stared at the ceiling.
When had moping in his room alone with a bunny become the status quo, anyhow?
[Open post, closed door, IDEK. Someone smack him or something.]
It was stupid. He hadn't so much as thought about going home in the past two years, and now that it was gone...
He needed to be doing things, but he had no idea where to start. So he just kind of cuddled Thor and stared at the ceiling.
When had moping in his room alone with a bunny become the status quo, anyhow?
[Open post, closed door, IDEK. Someone smack him or something.]
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 01:54 am (UTC)That was the long and short of it. Nothing she did mattered. Nothing she did got them any closer to finding a way to fix it.
"No one knows what to do. So if you're going to blame yourself, give me some of that, too."
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 02:14 am (UTC)"But I'm doing nothing," he protested. "I'm just sitting here and and and I'm crying and hurting and worrying and I'm useless."
Which had been a worry of his before people started to vanish.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 02:51 am (UTC)Because, you know, maybe he needed the reminder. "If you weren't sitting here crying and worrying, I'd wonder what was wrong with you! But it doesn't matter--you could be crying and worrying or you could be frantically researching and you know what? You'd have an equal effect! Nothing anyone is doing is working!"
Only Karla would turn to complete nihilism in an effort to make someone feel better. In her defense, however, she wasn't at her best.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 02:58 am (UTC)... From whimpering to yelling in ten seconds flat. That was probably a record for Warren.
Really, yelling at all was probably a record for Warren.
"I can't... I can't think right now but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't be doing something! What good am I if all I'm doing is nothing at all!?"
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 03:17 am (UTC)She poked him in the ribs, not at all the gentle nudge from earlier. "But whatever you're doing, stop blaming yourself for things you couldn't have fixed! Dinah is not your fault! Bobby is not your fault! Kennedy is not your fault! Your father is not your fault! So stop trying to make it that way if you want to be useful!"
Nice, Karla. Real nice.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 03:34 am (UTC)"So what can I fix? You just said yourself, there wasn't even a point!" Warren was pulling back now, re-claiming his wing and his arms so that Thor wouldn't get caught in the crossfire if there was more not-so-gentle poking. "I went to class yesterday, and it was about first aid. Excellent! Great! If whatever this is that ate a whole damn world shows up, I can bleed on it or offer it a band-aid. I'm sure that'll do a lot of good, too!"
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 03:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 03:54 am (UTC)And then he sagged forward, staring down at his feet.
"I just... want to sit here and hurt," he said, quietly, not able to look up. "I wait to sit here and hurt and worry and hate myself for never making peace with my dad and I want to miss everyone and feel small and stupid and scared and completely useless. And I can't do that. There's nothing I can do. Not if it's taken out entire worlds. But I can't do that."
And then he was bracing himself for more yelling.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 04:29 am (UTC)"Not being able to handle some kind of world-eating entity doesn't make you useless, Warren. It's stumping all of us. You're not--not holding anyone back or weighing anyone down. We're all in this together. We all feel small and stupid and scared and useless. I'm hurt and worried and hating myself because I couldn't protect Dinah or Leda or even convince them to stay on the island."
She paused for breath, trying to figure out where she was going with all that. "What do you want from me?" she asked, miserable. "Tell me what to say and I'll say it."
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 04:46 am (UTC)Which, if she managed to parse all of that, he didn't figure she'd be all that thrilled about.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 04:56 am (UTC)She laughed, but it was a bitter, choked noise. "Then by all means, Warren, let me be the first. Go to the library. Talk to the librarian. Find a book or four that haven't been pawed over already and start reading. If you're feeling ambitious, take notes! Unless that would be too much like shrugging it off."
Her knuckles turned white in her lap as she clenched her hands together, biting back the nasty, hurtful things that still leapt too easily to her tongue.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 05:12 am (UTC)Not what he'd meant, entirely?
But it was exactly what he'd said, wasn't it?
OhGod he was just making everything worse, sitting here and acting like some spoiled rich kid whose biggest trouble growing up was that he'd never been allowed to stretch and saying all the wrong things, acting like the end of the world was somehow his fault but everyone else should make it better for him because he was too sad to be of any good to anyone. So what if he lost his entire world? He'd never been all that invested in it anyway, but there were other people who had lost just as much if not more, and they were still trying.
He just wanted whatever it was that they had, that kept them going, and he was blowing this spectacularly and now he'd hurt Karla and...
"I'm sorry," he murmured, tired and small and trying and failing to keep from hiding behind his wings. "I know this isn't just hitting me. I know. And there are people out there doing everything they can, you're doing everything you can and... And I'm just..." Deep breath. "I'm making this worse. I shouldn't even be talking right now. I'll be quiet."
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 05:24 am (UTC)Now Karla was jumping to her feet and it was a good thing she'd already moved Thor because he would have spilled over if he'd remained in her lap. "You can't do that!" She marched over the maybe three paces away he'd moved and thumped him hard on one of his struts. It wouldn't even be enough to bruise someone without a Healing factor, but it was the only thing she could think to do to show her displeasure with him cowering.
"No! You can't do that! You promised not to do that!" Folding her arms over her chest, Karla spat, "After I got back from Jack's world you promised--promised!--that you wouldn't do that! You wouldn't just hide away and bite back what you were thinking and feeling so you wouldn't make waves. You want to fight with me? Yell at me? Fine, then do it! You don't want to do any of those things? Then figure out a way to find us a way back to not fighting any more, but you can't just shut down on me! You can't wash your hands of responsibility and remain quiet when that's not going to fix anything! You. Promised!"
She glared up at him, angry eyes at odds with her trembling chin, but didn't back down.
"Or is that one more thing that I'm supposed to figure out by myself, too?"
Quiet. Bitter. Damning.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 05:36 am (UTC)And then she'd gone quiet.
He wished she was still yelling.
"Is that how you feel?" He wasn't certain where he found the voice to say that, because his throat was tight and he couldn't breathe, but there they were. Words. "You're on your own? I'm just... just shoving it all at you and telling you to make it better and..."
The voice that he'd apparently pulled out of thin air dried up again, left him sitting there and shaking, not quite coming out from behind his wings yet, mouth open and eyes wide and staring at nothing in particular.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 05:51 am (UTC)No air. Where did all of the air in his room go? Right now there was nothing. Karla was gasping for oxygen and there was nothing. She took a step back and then another, eyes wide and throat constricting shut, chest being brutally compressed until it was almost flat.
Another backwards step and then she hit the bed again, sinking down onto it seconds before her knees gave way.
"Not until today." Barely a whisper. Impossible to be anything more without enough air for breath. "Not until I came up and that's what you threw at me. And then you tried to stop talking--like all those times it was up to me to try to figure out what was going on in your head because you wouldn't say."
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 06:01 am (UTC)Inhale. Exhale.
"So people are going through things in the library, and I should do that. I should be in the library, helping people study, but I can't focus, I tried looking things up on the internet and it's like the words kept slipping. And nobody's injured so I can't do first-aid, and there's nothing to fight, so it's not like I can... can get all commando-chicken and flap at anything while people call me some kind of Angel and I'm not. I'm just some big dumb kid who's all broken up over a world he never really got to be a part of in the first place. Poor fucking me while everyone else goes through the same thing I just did."
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 01:26 pm (UTC)She wasn't ignoring what he said. She was just trying to get out what she was feeling, too. Maybe they could confront those feelings. Stop gouging at one another with words. Something. "I've been trying to be strong and mature and adult. Trying to find ways to stop it, trying to keep in contact with all my friends, trying not to feel lost and hurt and abandoned as they one by one blink off the maps. And I'm just so tired. Nothing I do feels like it's worth it. I've been going through the days feeling so old and worn and today I just feel so fucking young. I feel like a little girl trying to do a woman's job and I just can't. I'm failing everyone and all I want to do is hide away and I can't."
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-30 03:54 pm (UTC)"But we are still kids, aren't we?" There wasn't any mirth in those words, even though his face seemed hell-bent on smiling, something dark and strained and terrified. "We're just terrified teenagers trying to make sense of this, trying to figure out how to make something better and even the grown-ups are terrified and struggling. We keep... growing up, and saving worlds, and fighting and healing and do you know how many times I've seen nightmares in New York since coming here, and each and every time, I'm just thankful that it's not my New York. I can keep doing it because it's not my New York and even if it was, I wouldn't be able to just... just sit back and watch people get hurt. But with Trigon and the Church of Humanity and Kyknos, at least we knew what was going on. And now we don't and New York is gone and people are gone and we're still just kids."
... Some of that made sense, probably.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-01 01:43 am (UTC)The responsibilities never stopped. They just kept piling up and getting higher and deeper and they were drowning and it was unfair!
"...Can we?"
Karla wasn't sure she knew how.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-01 01:46 am (UTC)That was... it was a good question.
"Maybe we can be kids today," he offered, quietly reaching for her hands. "Because we're not very good at being adults right now anyhow. And we can work on growing up tomorrow."
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-01 02:13 am (UTC)She was still turning the idea of being a kid over in her mind. She wasn't sure if it were possible without Fandom's influence to help that along. But that didn't mean she couldn't try, right?
But before she did, there had to be one last moment of maturity and let Warren know how sorry she was for using her words to hurt.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-01 02:52 am (UTC)Things were... still inside-out. Still upside-down and roiling around in the pit of his guts. And he'd yelled as well.
"And then I broke my promise, and I'm sorry for that too."
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-01 04:57 pm (UTC)Fighting with Warren hurt. It was so weird. Picking a fight with Morton to make herself feel better had always been a thing. But now, even fighting with Warren unintentionally made her heart ache and her stomach twist.
"Or, not, even. We don't have to. I just--I don't want to fight with you. I don't want to yell. I'm sorry."
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-01 05:17 pm (UTC)"We... could. I don't think I'm doing any good at getting the right words out today, though."
He inched a little closer, bumping his hip against hers and folding a wing over her shoulder again.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-02 04:47 am (UTC)"We don't have to talk about anything at all," she said, turning slightly so that her cheek was still resting on his feathers, but so her voice wouldn't be muffled. "I just want to make sure everything is okay between us first. We're just scared and miserable and out of sorts, but that doesn't mean we should be taking it out on one another."