- (sonrisa) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-07-24 04:39:00 |
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Entry tags: | !wonderland, *narrative, lin alesi |
narrative, DC→Wonderland: Lin A
Who: Lin Alesi
What: narrative/meta/good luck reading this
Where: DC→Wonderland
When: after this
Warnings/Rating: self-pity so hardddd
Lin could have quoted at least a paragraph each from like, twelve upper-level psych textbooks to explain his behavior as of late. He could have cited a decided lack of meds—several of which he had been taking for nearly a decade, before the hotel scattered its faithful customers like so many ashes over someone's dog's shit—or he could have pinned it on the unbearable sediment of worry that weighed low and heavy in his stomach when he thought about Daniel, left alone, a feeling that was lapped at by an unending seiche of guilt. He could have stood there and recited to you about self-awareness, about how he'd been here before and it was familiar stomping ground with new camp furniture, none of them with those useful cupholders. Or, if you were really fucking bored, he could tell you the story of it all, but end to beginning, with even the words backwards, because he could do that, and you and he could make a game out of how many you words recognized based on inverted phonetics alone. He was too smart not to know how stupid he was, and he was too sensitive to not know how ironhanded and selfish he was being. He spent most of his time thinking, how could he miss those glaring defects that went into full anthelion glory under the right sun—be it disappointment, guilt, or even comparative competition where he felt weak or anything else that poked at shell-soft skin in low tide. (And trust, this was a low fucking tide.) One of his worst qualities was being fucking self-aware, because he could see what he was doing, but he couldn't stop it. It was like having the pilot seat of an especially powerful, but poorly put together Musha Gundam, where the steering wheel changed volume of your shitty pop anthems the 1980s chose for you, and you had this tiny fucking knob circa 1972 to actually move all four limbs at once. In short: hella fucking terrible, if not downright impossible. He knew Sam wasn't talking about him when she wrote to him, but he couldn't help but read into what she said when she who cared'd and whatever'd him over and over again, and the knee-jerk reaction of any kid who'd suffered under the whims of some bully or another, was a posturing sort of defense—that was the first line anyway. You got defensive bc it saved your ass. (The second line was you went into appeasement or full on catatonia. But, he wasn't that bad yet.)—He immediately assumed attack, even when he knew it wasn't there, just like he knew that shadow puppets were not, in fact, real fucking puppets, so maybe he should stop thinking someone's hand was up his ass when it was just light on a wall. Sam wanted to help Daniel, and Lin knew that. He did. And he was more grateful than he could express, but he wanted to kick the Jersey girl in the shins—yeah, both of them—at the same time. He knew it was only in his imagination that disappointment dripped from her words, that they meant any sort of comparison ("ok, Lin, do what u have 2 do but I care about Daniel," as quoted through gapped teeth—the implication being he did not, or he did so subpar)—but he felt like he'd failed at something and like, really bad. Like, probably not even a C. She thought they'd be good, him and Daniel, that maybe they'd help one another or something, or isn't it great Daniel can stand someone who's not me since I'm fucking Neil. Or she thought that Lin had the fucking balls to do shit. And now here they were, her wrong, Daniel dying, and him in the fetal position on the floor. He knew, really, she was just worried about Daniel, and that it was the narcissism of insecurity that made him turn the magnifying glass toward himself, in full Pyreliophorus force, and see it as anything that had to do with him, outside of assisting in the sobering up of one Daniel Webster. He was but a key for a very drunk-ass lock. But knowing never helped. Lin had learned long, long ago, he was a smart kid—recite-bullshit-backwards smart—, but he was fucking useless. He'd tried to combat that idea his whole life—like, nuh uh! I can be smart and useful. Just watch me! He did hands on work. He came up with solutions. He was resourceful. He emboldened changes now and then. Right?—But, nope, wrong-o, buck-o. Here he was again. Useless. Needing Sam to come and pull Daniel out of the gutter for him, because he was too incompetent or selfish to do it himself. And sure, he'd been going to do it, but he hadn't, and that was the difference. And that was the kicker, wasn't it? There was a starling clarity that came with the realization that he could do shit, but that he never did, for whatever reasons: Daniel didn't need him. Daniel needed someone like Sam, who could look outside of her own admittedly-interesting, but-ultimately-only-interesting-to-her navel and help, who could say okay, we're both drowning, but use my fucking dead body as a life raft in a cute Jersey accent. Lin could only see the water, hear his own heart. It was all he could do to go see the scenery in another door. It was all he could do to put on a fucking shirt and pants every day. He tried to get pleasure out of concocting outfits and trite smiles for dance-dizzy men, but his heart wasn't in it. Louis was good. He liked Louis. Louis made him feel wanted, and he had beautiful hands and he was so nice, and that helped. It helped someone like Lin a lot. But not even Louis could undo what Lin had done. He'd left. He'd left Daniel behind in a week-old shirt and a spindle of drool tearing at the corner of his mouth, because he, Lin Erskine Alesi, wanted to. Because it was all about him. Jesus, Lin hated himself for it. He hated himself for a lot these days, but that was up there on that haphazard, fully-fleshed out mental list. He'd left, thinking it would be good to give Sam and Daniel their time alone, because they were friends first and that was only nice. And he knew he was an asshole, that he'd hurt Sam's feelings the last time she and Russ had come around, so he thought, fuck, why not give them their visit? I can go somewhere else and it'll be good for me too. But that had been read back to him as a selfish choice, as a do whatever you need to do, Lin, I just don't want Daniel to die and he wanted to fucking scream about it. Like, dude, if he'd stayed and sulked bc who wanted to see ex-fuck sitting on current-fuck (though not really since he couldn't fucking get it up)'s lap nuzzling him and current-fuck (tnrshcfgiu) enjoying her company right there, in front of their face, like ex-fuck was better for current-fuck (tnrshcfgiu)? Not fucking Lin—if he stayed, he was a downer, but doing it for himself. If he went, he was an asshole for leaving. It was good for him to go, yes, it made it so he didn't have to watch the canoodling, but he only went bc he thought it would be good for them. He was a fucking selfish little dick, but he occasionally did things for other people. No, really, he did. But, no, actually, it was doing whatever he needed to do and I understand. Lin never liked being the person who threw around bullshit like NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME, BLACK NAILPOLISH, ONLY YOU DO *SINGLE BLACK TEAR*, and so he tried not to, but he also tried to never fucking tell people he got their shit, because it pissed him off when people did it to him. He knew she didn't mean it as such, but he took her words as criticism of him, like, k you do that Lin, I'll be over here, yk, fucking helping Daniel not die, bc I, unlike you, give a fuck. But also it's good for you to do that, and I understand, so do it. But also Daniel. I just wanted to mention it one more time, in case you forgot how much better I am than you at taking care of people and how selfish you are. Totes. (Who even said totes? No one.)——It wasn't her fault, Sam's. She was such a good friend. She cared so much about Daniel. And it crushed him bc he knew Sam thought he hated her. He didn't. He loved her. He just wasn't who she thought he was, once upon a time, and the fact that she could see that now was the worst. He tried to be a good person. He did. He thought he was. He would step into the path of a train to save someone (although, if he could pull them off the tracks without any lives needing to be sacrificed, that would be preferable). He'd stopped like, two muggings, bc he could outtalk almost anyone and as that was like, his only asset, he tried to use it. He wanted to help people, wanted them to be happy. Lin wanted to do good. Maybe he wasn't brave, he wasn't a knight, and he'd begged Chloe for his life, for Sam's, but he wanted to do good! But... maybe he just... couldn't. Maybe he'd thought he was a protagonist in the great storybook of life, but he was an antagonist the whole time. Maybe he was too self-centered to ever be able to do anyone any good at all. Shit, I mean, look at this right now—all this fucking meta about how Lin felt~*~*, not about how he was tucking Daniel in or how he was making a beeline for the door bc he was so worried about his ...boyfriend (tnrshcfgiu) dying on him. He was a honest-to-baby-Christ mess and he was a terrible person and everyone could see it. But he knew they didn't. But his anxiety said, they could. And his insecurity said, holla, it was true. And his depression said, I think we should probably fucking go sit in the goddamn corner since everything we touch dies.—Reality ticked away with Daniel's life, and all Lin could do was cry as he walked in beat-up shoes over shitty hotel carpet bc he didn't know what to do, that's how fucking selfish he was. He was so fucking stupid to think he could do any good for someone like Daniel, when he worried about being hated, about how it would affect him if he made Daniel do what he did not want to do. He was so fucking stupid to think—to think that Daniel even wanted or needed someone like him. How egomaniacal could you get? (And if you're tired of hearing this, over and over, imagine how Lin feels. This is his head all the time.) The drain of tears and snot that was his face was planted into the crook of his elbow as Lin teetered outside the door to Daniel's, the door that would open into Lin's own quarters. His skin was warm, his eyes burned, and he was getting himself wet and sticky in a really not-good way, but he couldn't stop, and not even fucking suddenly, he was full-out bawling because he didn't understand himself (he couldn't stand himself at all. Hahaha, get it) and he couldn't help and he was sure, sure Sam was disappointed in him and Daniel was going to die, and it was going to be his fault for being an exigent fucking baby all the time. Dude could be dead right now, because Lin couldn't get his shit together in the hallway for two seconds. God, and how self-centered was it to think someone's life and death relied solely on you? It was like his own brain was cannibalizing itself from the inside out based on the paradox of self-awareness shoehorned into magnification. Fuck. The war of self-pity vs. self-awareness was exhausting, it was fucking trench warfare stalemate bullshit, and winter was coming, and everyone had trenchfoot and no food, and they just wanted to be at home with their families and 1918 entertainment and absolutely no A Song of Ice and Fire references, but neither side wanted to be the first to give up. Lin felt like wringing his own neck, even as he cried into his palms like a five-year-old, stupid fucking velcro shoes and all. He felt like wringing his own neck, but he wanted a hug—like, so wanted a hug, he hurt, because he was pathetic. He wanted Daniel to like him—love him?—because he was pathetic. He needed to be needed more than Sam, because he was pathetic. And he wanted someone to tell him, right now, that maybe someday someone would like him, or that he was pretty and he was smart, because he was fucking pathetic. Lin pawed at his eyes, the galaxies on his nails flashing, trying with desperation wrung dry to wick the tears from his face. The red cuticles of dramatic self-pity still existed there as solid evidence, but he didn't fucking care. Daniel wouldn't notice. And, okay, fine, it was pathetic, but he'd already made up his mind. Lin stuck the key into the lock and turned the knob to his room. He was going to crawl into bed next to Daniel and he was going to pull the dick's arms around him like deadweights to keep him pinned, and he was going to sleep there. He'd knock the asshole out if he had to. He was going to be held and be warm and he was going to sleep. Tomorrow, he'd call in the real troops. He just needed one more night in the trench, one more night holding onto the thought that he could be a soldier too. |