the_disquiet (the_disquiet) wrote in reality_dome, @ 2014-06-10 11:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | dahlia thomas, jacob cooper |
And you'll ask yourself...
Characters: Dahlia and Jake
When: Friday Late Night – Saturday Early Morning
Location: His cabin
Warnings/Rating: probably swearing
Summary: Dahlia has a bad day
Status: Complete
The rain beat down upon her; Dahlia closed her eyes and breathed it in. She didn't care about the mud at her back or the way her blond hair clung to it. She didn't care about the mess that her dress had become or the slight bite to the air that rose goosebumps to her skin. She lay there on the ground somewhere in the dome and tried, desperately, to still her racing heart. She clung to each hit of rain against her, she relished the way it washed away her own tears of frustration. She wanted it to wash the slate clean....to wash away the previous few hours.
Dahlia had left the horses earlier that day feeling better. She'd gone to feed them again; finding with Jaime on Thursday that she liked the horses a lot. It had been...fun. She wasn’t sure why watching them run, watching them be so free, was calming to her. After they wandered away she'd spent time drifting through the dome, exploring the terrain, allowing herself to...enjoy what she could of it. When she returned to her cabin just as the sun was going down she fed Max and..had paced a bit debating if she should try to talk to Sin but when she knocked she got no reply... Sighing softly she’d gone to her room; shutting her door behind her.
Max did not appreciate the shut door at first; Dahlia tried to shush him to keep him from annoying Sin. It took a few minutes but eventually he found distraction and Dahlia was left with nothing to keep her from what she'd gone into her room for.
Painting.
She hadn't painted since the New Year almost. She'd picked up the brushes, she'd fussed over colors, only to stare at the paintings for hours with not a drop of paint put to the canvas. Each time she'd raise the brush her hand would shake and her head would scream with how pointless it all was. She hated it. Painting, once, had been her escape. No matter how loud it all became she could disappear into the art and, for a brief time, find calm. She felt like herself when she painted. Whoever she was beyond the loud, beyond the strange looks and conversations with herself, was there in the artwork.
She hoped the week…the quiet…helped…
Again she picked up the brush and she stared at the picture half completed from long ago, for April. She traced a finger against the pattern of the wings and thought of all the ways to continue the piece...only for the brush to shake as it neared the blank spot on the canvas. A tremble that threatened to destroy the whole thing. Gritting her teeth she'd attempted to steady her hand. She gripped her wrist with her free hand, she took a deep breath, she closed her eyes and tried to count to ten through the jumble of thoughts that had come flooding in.
She let the time slip hoping to find that place in her mind where she could create.
When she opened her eyes her hand still shivered and paint had dripped haphazardly to the canvas.
Harshly she shoved it away from her.
Why should painting take all this away? Why should you get to hide here?
Aggravation made her fingers curl into fists "So you are trying to take that from me? Because I'm hiding here?" a bitter note of sadness crept into the words as her own head sought to sabotage her. "Why does it matter who knows? There are people with pasts darker and stranger than mine, why..." she was cut off by the sneer in her own mind Stop hiding
Dahlia had wanted to scream...
"I don't know what that means."
It didn't matter that she didn't. When she tried to ignore the thoughts and raise a paint brush to her wall instead of canvas; her hand shook still. A quivering that made the color dance against the blank wall in a scattering that drew a noise of further frustration from Dahlia.
"I don't have anything else to make it quiet..." a plea almost that went ignored.
Dahlia didn't realize that she'd risen to her feet. That the paints she'd collected were suddenly hurled from her desk. She scarcely realized that the paint tray hit the wall with a splat or that her claws had ripped through the wall where she'd attempted to paint.
All she knew is that she wanted the quiet back and that the destruction, the chaos, hadn't brought it.
Outside of her door Max yowled his protest. Dahlia opened the door gruffly; the kitten giving her a look before charging into the fray as though there were something to attack. Dahlia left him behind, pacing the room in agitation before the sight of Sin’s door being open caught her eye.
It hadn’t been earlier had it?
“Sin…” Dahlia questioned; approaching the door quietly not wanting to disturb her if she were sleeping or had just been trying to let Max in. But what she saw when she neared the door wasn’t what she expected. Most of Sin’s things had been taken away but the room had always looked lived in. Now it stood empty and stark. The bed made. Every drawer closed. There was nothing to mark Sin as living there.
Sin had left….
Sin was gone…
That urge to run, to escape, came in a familiar wave and in that moment Dahlia grasped with all clarity what she'd spoken with Jaime about. Why people left the way they did. When it all hit, when it became too much, there was just this...
Dahlia didn't hit the button to leave. She wouldn't. But she did run. She left her room, she left the cabin, and she ran into the familiar night. She ran into the rain. She ran away from it all.
She ran until every muscle hurt.
She ran until she couldn’t breathe.
She ran until she stumbled over a crumbling wall and landed in a tangle at the bottom of the hill and couldn't get herself back up again.
And now she lay there. In the mud. In the rain. With her heart trying to beat its way out of her chest....
For a brief moment she could focus only on that; the gasps of breath she took as her muscles twitched and ached.
Is this your better? came a mocking tone what seemed like hours later.
Dahlia sneered faintly as she struggled to push herself up from the muck. "There isn't a better." vaguely there was a sense of agreement that made her head cease its pounding. Had that been the right answer? Is that what she needed to learn? Slowly Dahlia got to her feet and, faintly limping, started back towards her cabin. Each step was nearly a slip. She fought to keep herself upright as the rain dripped mud into her eyes and streaked red down her arms from minor cuts and tears from shrubs.
One step then the next; when she looked up she wasn't where she had wanted to go. It wasn't her cabin but Jake's. Her brows furrowed as she stared at his cabin. Why was she here? Dahlia shook her head faintly, fingers attempting to push strands of hair from her eyes as she very nearly forced herself to stumble away.
…it’s what she maybe should have done. Instead she found herself hesitating; standing there in the pouring rain with her hand raised to knock…
Finally she did.