javier diego casanovamaya. (fastforwards) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2012-10-19 04:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! narrative, ! physical message, javier diego amaya |
WHO: Javier Diego Amaya. (To clarify: he has two first names, I swear I'm not just throwing his middle name around for no reason!)
WHEN: Thursday evening.
WHERE: The kitchen area.
WHAT: Distressed Javier contemplates his failures while he makes edible apologies to his team.
WARNINGS: Guilt and sappiness.
STATUS: Complete. Also short.
It wasn't his fault, but that didn't mean that Javier didn't feel responsible, somehow. He hadn't made the lists -- he wasn't the bully here, or the one hurting people -- yet for all his good intentions, he still hadn't managed to affect any change. He'd woken up the other day with a knot in his stomach, this heavy, cold thing twisting up his insides as he thought about his teammates and the kind of cruel words he could imagine the lists' author coming up with to describe them all. Swan was an unusually civil team, in part because so many of the personalities that comprised the group were easy-going, not prone to drama or egotism or ostentatious behavior. He'd observed -- and quietly grinned over -- the way that those people's kindness seemed to curb even the most headstrong members of the team, and most days he couldn't help but be deeply grateful for his luck. He had lost his own family years ago, when they'd proven to him that they didn't share his open-hearted sentiments; it felt a little bit like he might finally be finding a real family, a better one. He couldn't stand the thought of anyone calling them pathetic. Jokes about the Swans being too saccharine were to be expected, but attacking their insecurities and their personal lives was too much for him to stomach. It didn't matter if some of them wouldn't take it seriously. He couldn't imagine Sel doing anything other than shrugging with a "lah, oh well" smiling his little crooked smile, and Claudia seemed stubbornly secure in the knowledge that she'd be fine, no whatever the outcome. But Moira? Lilja? Anthony? Ethan? Benjamin? Savannah? Benjie, or his budding romance with Coraline? And hell would hath no fury if anyone rated above Mariana. He'd worried about what effect the list might have on Carter's relationship. As for himself, he honestly had been at a loss for what to expect. If he was mocked or disrespected, he knew that he'd be angry, hurt. He'd wondered if Karim's sources had told him anything about his attempts and failures to win over Mariana's stubborn heart and he struggled not to worry about how pathetic he might look for being the kind of man who truly believed in the kind of promises that most guys used just to lure easily-charmed girls into bed. And in the end, resolving to do something about it -- to act before Karim could, even if it meant sacrificing his money or his time or his own carefully preserved dignity -- he'd let himself get distracted by his love life and his friends, and gone to sleep that night without having tried anything yet. By the time he'd woken up, it had been too late. Capullo. Parts of it weren't as bad as he'd expected, but the rest was somehow worse in reality than it had been in his imagination. Maybe it wasn't his fault, but he'd failed at the one thing that he'd wanted the most: to protect the people he cared about from anyone on the outside who would humiliate or hurt them. In English or in Spanish, he didn't have enough words to express how he felt. Every time he tried to write a text or an email to the others, he stumbled and hesitated, feeling increasingly dumb for losing his voice when it mattered. He'd tried to decide who to go to first, who to apologize to or reassure or offer physical comfort, and had come up empty-handed. He didn't know how to do this. In the end, he found himself mixing eggs into a bowl of flour and butter and eggs and water and salt and sugar, mindlessly brushing daubs of white on his cheek when it itched as he methodically folded the dough. He wasn't a baker by any means, he'd told his teammates before. He wasn't even much of a cook. He'd learned how to manage as a bachelor, and the nostalgic part of him had clung to old recipes that his mother used to make, needing too much to keep a small piece of her with him even if he couldn't make it just the way she used to. But the cook at the little peña where he'd worked loved to bake, and he remembered watching her whip the cream with her big strong arms and sift powdered sugar and pour dripping, melted chocolate with honey onto the puffs at the end. He remembered missing his family, his old life, his counselor, all the things he'd lost, feeling so isolated with all of these secrets locked inside of him, and he remembered thieving a pastry from the plate and closing his eyes as he focused on the simple pleasure of the food melting on his tongue. The end result was messy, but the three and a half dozen profiteroles that he delivered to his teammates' rooms were the best way he could think to make it up to them. |