hailey hamilton is better underwater. (mermayd) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2013-02-11 16:56:00 |
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Although Hailey was social by nature, she’d recently been spending more time alone or in her room with just Coralie. It was a mixture of unresolved feelings and not having the patience to wait around for someone to answer her texts and hang out. She spent quite a bit of time hanging out in the lake, but she was also spending more and more time practicing guitar. She wasn’t phenomenal by any means, and her voice was mediocre at best. She wasn’t awful either, though. She’d even say she had gotten much better since being at IVI, especially within the past month. Hailey was sitting on her bed with her guitar when she heard a knock at the door. “Come in,” she called loudly, not put off by the sound. She had no idea who was on the other side, but she had nothing to hide in here. Whoever it was she’d probably be glad to invite in anyways - or invite out to do something. It was probably Allegra on her way back to her room and wanted to go get dinner or something. === Remy hesitated for a split second trying to sort out who belonged to the female voice, but it was only a second--really, it didn’t matter. Coralie’s room mate, obviously, whom he should remember or have an idea of but who was, mentally, more like a shadowy girl-shaped figure to him than anything. And it was difficult for him to resist an invitation, no matter who it was from. He was relatively well-dressed when he pushed the door open, worrying what looked like a scrap of paper stuck between his lips (it was a scrap of paper, but one which he hoped to transmute into a cigarette soon). Remy took the room in at a glance, which made it quite clear that Coralie was not there––but then she was in high demand, and he was unannounced. “Bonjour,” he said to Hailey, closing the door behind him and pulling the faux-cigarette from his mouth. If she was Coralie’s room mate, she doubtless knew the most basic French. Anyway, American toddlers knew what bonjour was. “I’m not sure we’ve met,” Remy said, crossing the distance between them in a distracted way, eyeing the guitar and, when he was close enough, running a hand over the curve of the front. “This is yours?” ==== Hailey didn’t typically use French, but that didn’t mean she knew nothing. She had been forced to take French for five years in school, and while she didn’t particularly enjoy the language, she had earned decent grades. When Remy said ‘bonjour’, Hailey immediately replied with “Bonjour, comment ça va?” It slipped out naturally, and Hailey realize it was the first time she’d attempted to start a conversation in French since being at IVI. She had picked up some from Coralie from time to time, but the girls spoke in English. Hails didn’t know nearly enough to hold a conversation. “I’m Hailey,” she greeted, not finding it odd that Remy had pointed out they hadn’t met but hadn’t offered his name. She watched as he came closer, more interested in what he was looking at than anything else. “Yeah, it’s mine. Was my dad’s, though. Handed down after he got a new one.” It wasn’t in the best condition, but it wasn’t the worst either. It was tuned and the strings stayed put, so Hailey was happy with it. She wasn’t looking to make it big in any band. “Want it?” she asked, holding it outwards towards Remy. As much as Hailey might enjoy playing, she preferred watching other people play. === Remy’s surprise lasted for all of one second when Hailey replied in French, and he made the language jump with ease. “Ce depend. Le jour, l'heure. Comme-ci, comme-ça. Et tu?” Speaking French in Coralie’s room was good---natural, even. The reality that he had to give his name, that Hailey couldn’t really know it. Life would be easier if he ever achieved infamy. “Remy,” he said, and he wondered with a stab of greed whether she would recognize the name if not his face as something, alcohol-maker, drug-maker, scrawny loser, a flicker of recognition in any form. “A family heirloom,” he said, again in English because it seemed easier to default, although he spoke lazily, like what he was saying wasn’t coming from or trying to go anywhere in particular. “I haven’t played in months,” he said, taking the guitar lightly in both hands, running his fingers more fully over the shape. He slid onto the bed next to Hailey on reflex, cradling the guitar and picking at the strings one by one with his scarred fingers. “Or longer. I would use my brother’s old one. Passed down, et cetera.” He crooned a note to the guitar and then replicated it. === There was a sense of pride that filled Hailey when she realized she could understand what Remy was saying. She wouldn’t be able to come up with words to have a conversation, but she’d forgotten how much French she could piece together and somewhat understand. Benefits of living in a country that made French mandatory. She’d dropped it, but at least some of it had stuck. “Yeah,” Hailey said, understanding the passing down of guitars. “I didn’t bring mine with me, but I had my parents send it. I’ve played more here than I ever did back home. Mostly just to get away from everyone.” And distract her from the small space she was confined to. She could walk to the lake with her guitar and almost forget that she couldn’t go much further. “Did he teach you?” Hailey asked gently while watching Remy play. === Remy’s touch-memories were his most distinct, and the smooth feel of the guitar under his fingers made him remember his brother so vividly it was like a physical ache radiating from between his ribs, and at the same time one that was comforting, like sinking back into a warm bed. “I left mine––his. Maybe I should have brought it, but ...” He shrugged. The sentence didn’t have an ending, he didn’t know why he hadn’t brought it. He just hadn’t wanted to, had wanted to even less after Christmas break. He seemed to be trying to shed his family like an old skin. It probably wasn’t going to work or if it did, he knew he would regret it. But it seemed natural. “Yes,” he said, strumming with more purpose. “Because I thought it would impress girls, mostly.” He looked up and smirked a little at her at that, then turned his attention back to the guitar. “But then it became a thing between us. And every boy knows how to play guitar, after all.” His fingers naturally started moving to the familiar chords of his old band, but they were so wrong for his state in IVI that he slowed them and moved to something gentler, hummed along. “I barely knew English when I learned this song,” he said, “but it was one of the first he taught me.” === The way Remy’s sentence finished - or didn’t finish - seemed natural. Hailey left many sentences unfinished, mostly because she hadn’t thought about them before starting. It wasn’t something she was going to dig for, a combination of feeling as though there wasn’t anything to dig, and not having any right to dig. She hardly knew Remy, and he was here for Coralie. Whenever she’d be back. Occasionally Hailey tried to keep track of Coralie’s comings and goings, but she always came back at some point. It was hard enough to keep track of who Coralie was with, let alone how long she’d be. Remy produced a chuckle from Hailey. Back in high school every girl had wanted a guitar player. It was readily available up North because there was little else to do, but Hailey had heard stories of city boys not knowing how to play even the simplest of songs. “Did it work?” she quipped back playfully. The chords Remy played weren’t a familiar pattern to Hailey, but that wasn’t anything new. Almost everything Richie played Hailey didn’t recognize, and every week at pub night there were more and more songs Hailey had never heard. “When did you learn English?” Hailey asked, momentarily shocked by the realization many people here hadn’t learned English first - yet they could speak it perfectly. “What’’s he doing now?” Hailey asked about Remy’s brother. She realized it might be a bit personal, but she was always curious to see how other people’s families reacted to Vols. === "More than you'd think, actually," he said, though half of it was due to a band in general, however large his role in it. "But less than I wanted. Of course." You still needed a good personality, or a good body, or a good something and even when he was a child (as he thought of himself at sixteen, fifteen) he was not quite good. Somehow he hadn't expected Hailey to ask about his learning English--at IVI it was such a given, that everyone more or less was fluent, and he wondered how everyone else learned. School, probably. "Through him, actually. More or less, as it goes. I knew the basics from school, but I went with him to New York, in America, for a few months one summer." He ran his tongue over his teeth, one of his self-comfort gestures. "I have a quick tongue," he said, again flashing a smirk at Hailey, "and I pick languages up. Easier than most, maybe." If he could have taken only languages at IVI, he wanted to say, he would. He was already taking two, and if the schooling was indefinite, nothing would stop him from picking another, and another, and another. There was plenty of opportunity for practice. Remy nearly bit his tongue when she asked about his brother, not out of shock but just as a reaction from the jolt of his mention. At length he replied, "He's dead." === “Of course,” Hailey repeated with a slight chuckle. She hadn’t really ever talked to Remy, but he wasn’t all that different from the guys she’d hung around with back home. Not yet, anyway. The ones at home might be a bit more vulgar, but Remy might just be warming up to her. Her teenage years had been full of openly and indirectly joking about sex, almost all of which led back to the guys complaining they weren’t getting enough, even after they’d tried to brag about the amount they were getting at first. “I’m awful with languages,” Hailey offered. She hadn’t picked any up after French, but she’d had no desire to. Besides, she could breathe underwater, and talking wasn’t possible down there. The only language she’d really had an interest in was sign language, and that was more for bragging rights than honestly wanting to learn it. The silence felt natural, but something about being told Remy’s brother was dead rose a surge of emotions in Hailey. She didn’t know his brother, hardly knew Remy, but all of a sudden Hailey felt not only on the verge of tears, but on the verge of breaking down completely. What the hell was going on? For weeks she’d suffocated any sadness she felt at Marine, Mal, Alyosha, and Erik’s deaths, among the others she hadn’t really known. Faced with such an expected admission, Hailey’s bottled up emotions started to leak. And leak they did, slowly from her eyes. “I’m --,” she started, going nowhere in particular with the sentence. “I’m sorry -- this is -- I don’t know why I’m...” Hailey stammered words, trying a new sentence after getting halfway through the last. === It was strange to say those words, which Remy had said maybe only a handful of times in his life: my brother is dead. And he realized slowly and then all at once that he was not really sure anyone at IVI, except Elise and the staff who had his file, knew, and he had just told someone else, someone he didn’t really know and who had just happened to be nearby, and the feeling was like a thick knot of miasma in his extremities and behind his eyes. At the same time it seemed natural, smooth. No issue. And then he looked at Hailey and she was crying and he had no idea what to do, it seemed so out of place, who was this woman and why was she reacting? So then he was overcome by an almost murderous feeling, his hands itching to grab her and shake, bare his teeth and snarl in her face that she had no right to be like this in front of him about his own brother, although logically for her this was not about his brother, and still that was even more offensive because there was no right to use his brother as an excuse for other feelings, and all of it was very muddled and also poignant and then she stuttered so he let the guitar slip with a gentle clang to the floor and took her hand in his and leaned forward. Not in a kiss, the farthest thing, and she would probably pull away anyway, but to rest his forehead against hers and grit his teeth. He felt like growling, not in anger but in pain, like a cornered cat, and instead he mastered the animal urge and made a shh noise, held her hand tight. “It’s fine,” he breathed out more than said, a wisp of a voice. Although clearly for both of them, something wasn’t. == What was happening? Hailey felt strange. The tears were unnatural, she didn’t even know this boy beside her, and now her body - or was it his body? - was moving. She felt Remy’s forehead press into hers, but it still felt odd, as if she wasn’t actually here and this was a dream. Which was even worse, since Marine could manipulate dreams and Hailey knew that wasn’t possible anymore. Is this what people normally did when they cried? Being so close and having Remy see her like this was especially vulnerable, but also intimate. Not in a sexual way, but in a way that no one at IVI had seen her before. She wasn’t sobbing, perhaps that would come later, but Hailey wasn’t a particularly attractive crier. Crying made her feel weak and vulnerable, and those were two feelings she hated. Not only that, but she was crying in front of an actual stranger. Someone she’d seen in passing, but never for longer than a glance. Hailey’s hand tightened against Remy’s, and she only just realized he had taken a hold of it. This was so surreal, and Hails had trouble believing it was actually happening. She had stuffed her emotions away for so long that having all this sadness bubble up was ridiculous. “I’m so sorry,” she said quietly, “I didn’t mean to cry.” She was sorry for his loss, of course, but she wouldn’t say that. That was what everyone said when someone died and it got annoying. == Remy knew there was something in him that prevented his crying in front of other people, or, a lot of the time, prevented him from any genuine expressions of emotion, and he could feel this thing physically, a solid wall which rose up between him and other people at the slightest chance of exposure. So even though Hailey was crying in front of him, and he could have cried too because he was thinking of his brother, instead he felt heavy all over, this suppression which was deeper than instinct or reflex. He licked his lips. “Don’t worry,” he said, feeling his own accent thick with the blockage in his throat, “you must have needed it. Don’t we all?” Yes, he thought, don’t we. We especially, being he, Remy, and he, Remy’s blood, and Remy’s flesh and the three of them together. But it was easier to curl up in a dark place than to cry. == For a moment, Hailey let her tears flow in silence. It was a little late now to be worried about looking weak in front of Remy anyways. She was pleasantly shocked by how okay Remy was with her crying while she was cursing herself internally. Eventually, Hailey was able to regain composure. Her breaths were sharp and unnatural, but she stopped the tears. With her free hand, Hailey viciously wiped her face, almost as she she was trying to dig away any remnants the tears had left behind. “I --” Hailey started intending to apologize again before cutting herself off. “Thank you,” she settled with and squeezed Remy’s hand before pulling hers away. “I don’t really know why... It’s been awhile, I guess.” Hails forced a smile, but it was clearly not genuine. “You can still play,” Hailey said, reaching to pull the guitar off the ground. “That goes for anytime, too.” == Maybe the natural reaction to Hailey’s crying would have been to become uncomfortable, to squirm and wiggle his way out of the room, but Remy felt the emotion lapping at the edges of his consciousness and remained. Not impassive, not untouched, just outwardly stoic while he drank it and and probably after this he would be in his room, flat on his bed staring at the black ceiling or in the closet chewing his fingers, thinking of nothing but the blackness surrounding him in every way. Maybe in comparison Hailey’s crying was a relief, human sympathy even if he didn’t think it was quite aimed at him. “We’re in a bad place,” he said, flexing the fingers of his newly-released hand, already missing the skin contact. “Aren’t we? A place where we don’t need reasons for what we do.” Remy’s eyes moved to the guitar, which seemed to him to be almost flesh and blood, after all this. Again he ran his hand along the curve. “Are you sure?” === This entire interaction was something Hailey wasn’t likely to ever forget. She’d have a connection and odd affection towards Remy that she could never properly explain, but that was okay. Her connection with Coralie was hard to explain as well, so the fact that Remy was Coralie’s friend made it fit nicely together. Hailey didn’t respond to Remy’s words, but instead she let them wash over her. He was right. So many of them did strange things that doing something as normal as crying shouldn’t be looked down upon. Not that Hailey would ever be proud she cried, but at least she could eventually become okay with it. With a nod Hailey pulled her hands away from the guitar, leaving it in Remy’s hands. “I’m sure,” she said firmly as an answer to both statements. === |