greatoldjohn | TLV Inbox: Act II

[from here]

[ His expression doesn't lighten. ]

That means you've been hurt for days! Why didn't you call for me? Why didn't you say something!? Even if you didn't want to see me for some reason, I would have made you feel better-

[ A deeeeeeeep breath in. ]

I'll carry you. And fix you up on the way.

[She shakes her head, pushing back against that.]

I didn't want to do anything. I wanted to sit and read and forget that I was stranded with nothing and no one.

[She sits up and reaches out a hand for him, though.]

[ Oh, he's lifting her up, and he'll wait until she's close and in his arms, but then-

Oh he's still huffy, miss. You're not the only one who can be huffy in this definitely-not-a-relationship-shut-up. ]

So I'm no one now? Could have fooled me.

[ He's headed over towards the Bargezian Commune area. She can take his bunk. ]

[She reaches down to grab her bag, but then settles in his arms.]

You have so many people, John. Perhaps I wanted someone who worries for me first.

[Justine is not prone to jealousy in any way, but this has been stewing in her for a while. It isn't jealousy; she doesn't want to take for him. She doesn't want to monopolize his time.

But feeling lost and scared when those feelings are so new has made her - hollow. And unable to ask for what she wants.]

[ She'll feel it, how he stills for a moment. How she hit a nerve. Then he'll keep going. It's better than the alternative. It takes him until there almost there to find what he wants to say. There's a process where he goes from angry to hurt to self-critical to indignant and all the way back to angry. Once he's at frustrated-]

You ran from me. You didn't say why. You didn't explain. You didn't tell me where to meet you later. You ran.

I came for you when you called, seconds after you called, and you ran.

[John is safe. John is comfortable. And she needs to vent a little in some direction or she will fall.]

You frightened me. The lights. The music! It was awful.

I wanted to get my notebooks, I wanted to have my things. Everything spiraled out of control, like I was stuck in a carriage with a runaway horse. I felt as if I might just fly off a cliff and I would if I could!

I never wanted to hurt you, but I didn't know what to do!

Edited 2024-10-08 17:15 (UTC)

[ from here ]

I do, actually. It's one of my favorite things to do.

[ He spends SO much time in the library. ]

And that's fair. It has it's disadvantages. And isn't great for our current... situation. But if you're having trouble sleeping, I can do it for a limited time. That might help.

I know you didn't mean to hurt me. But leaving me in the dark about it when you're scared and feeling alone hurts you.

If we're family, then we don't run away from each other. Safety is each other. I would have helped you get your notebooks. I would have helped you get your things. And even if we decided together that you could do it on your own, I could have healed your feet between then and now.

[ He breathes out slowly. ]

I know... not being alone takes time. You have to learn how to do it. Your head knows it but your heart... doesn't know how to trust it yet. But you can't learn if I don't say something. So... I'm saying something.

[ He leans down to nuzzle against her jaw. ]

I love you, Justine. Please. Let me.

[She brushes a kiss past him and then shakes her head, returning to her own thoughts.]

I do not ask for help.

I have never had family help me. Papa thought he was, but I was cruel to him and he was cruel back.

I will try. For you.

[ She'll get a kiss to the temple. ]

Thank you.

[ He'll lay her down gently in his hammock, even if her feet are healed and her shoes have changed to one of her favorite pair that he'd seen on the Barge. He didn't take them, just changed them. ]

We help each other. The panic you felt at the music... that's what I felt when I came to see you and your feet were hurt.

Maybe that wasn't family before. But it can be now.

Perhaps. Perhaps that is what family should be.

[She curls up in the hammock, protectively around her bag, admiring her shoes a little.]

I killed my father. My brother killed my mother in childbirth. I have been on my own for so long. I did beautiful things on my own.

[ He's just going to start lightly stroking her hair. ]

I was on my own for a long time too. But there's plenty of beautiful things we can do together. Think of all the duets we could do. Or a painting. Or a play together.

Perhaps.

Malo wanted me to play with him, once. He thought it romantic.

But you are more romantic.

What makes me more romantic?

His desire came from obsession, not love.

[She reaches down to slide her shoes off her feet.]

[ He will reach out for the shoe to take it and put it on the ground where she would come out of the hammock. ]

Right. [ Her hair is getting kissed. ]

[She is quiet for a moment, enjoying the attention as she reaches out to try and pull him close.]

I realized that I haven't told you much about them. Or really my life at home at all.

No. But I figured you'd talk about it when you wanted to. I'm always willing to listen.

And he'll very carefully slip into the hammock with her and wrap his arms around her to press another kiss in her hair.

She makes herself comfortable against him and closes her eyes again.

I had three men who wanted me to marry them. Considering I was thirty, this was quite the scandal. Malo was a violinist. He played beautifully, but wasted his gift with the drink. Aloïs was a sportsman. He played and did nothing else with his life because he had all the benefits that money could give him.

Basile was a woodworker. Beautiful to behold, but a beastly temper I ran afoul of once or twice.

As she speaks, she shows him what they looked like in their prime. Tall, handsome men with bright smiles and perfectly clipped hair. Like they came from statues, from paintings, from all the beautiful art.

Do you see them?

I will keep that in mind, thank you, and I may ask you for book recommendations should we make it back to our other vessel. I'm not certain reading is a particular focus of our current caretakers!

[ Said with a notably disapproving tone. Cannot believe these people are up to no good, he's taking no notes on the irony of such disapproval coming from an inmate. ]

Yes.

She's presenting them to him. And images are just as good as words. It's not as if he can't listen to her mind's voice that way. It's one way in which minds are different than sound.

And all of them were obsessed with you?

Of course. I am beautiful, wealthy, and unobtainable. They all covered me for many reasons. Basile and Malo did not get along. Malo thought Basile a brute. But I wanted them all.

Malo had a concert one night in which he was to receive an award. Of course I came to listen.

Music flows between them as she speaks. It's perfection, every note blessed. But it soon becomes discordant, missing notes jarring the once-beautiful music.

But he was drunk, again. And threw his bow into the audience when they expressed their displeasure. He collapsed on the stage, and Aloïs and Basile helped me bring him to my manor.

The discordant notes make him frown thoughtfully. Discordance can have value, bring something beautiful as well, but the notes are sour and he can practically smell the drink. He nods as she continues, nuzzling to her hair and gently stroking her arm.

And...

She sends him ideas as they flow. First, there's the sound of a man screaming her name, not in pleasure but in agony. The feeling of intense rapture from Justine.

I made him beautiful. I took out his eyes so he would never see another person. I stripped all of him down, wrapped him up in the chains of his own desires. Gave him a beautiful collar to remind him of diligence.

The creature she shows him is a shell of a man. Barbed wire around his legs, digging into his skin, a wheel around his neck as he cries out in agony.

His life would be exponentially easier if he could be horrified by it. If he could look at the way the wires are wrapped, the wheel around his neck, the devastation of a human body that's been done to the man. It would be simple if those senses of him couldn't taste the obsession in the lines of his form, the obsession wreaked upon him by her, the delight and devotion and art used to pick those particular pains, that particular choice. If he could not see what she finds beautiful, it would be so much easier for him to be who he is and who he wants to be.

But he can.

The trade off is that he understands. He's found other things he finds beautiful, that he wants and loves, but one can hardly ignore one's roots. And she can feel the truth of it, especially in the way he responds to it, and her rapture. The small shift as he curls closer around her.

Was he an offering to the Tattered King? Or merely a gift to yourself?

TLV Inbox: Act II

w/Justine [continued]

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w/Gale (continued)

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Cw: gore

Re: Cw: gore