emilie galloway. (bisecting) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2015-08-08 19:06:00 |
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He was avoiding her and avoiding her well. Even Emilie’s drug-addled brain was able to figure that out. She wasn’t, after all, stupid. An addict, yes. Insane, yes. Stupid? No, definitely not. He was hardly ever in their nest and on the off chance that he was there, he’d find a reason to leave immediately. Emilie couldn’t remember the last time they hadn’t shared their dirty little mattress, but when he came in at night, it was after she’d fallen asleep, and she’d find his blanket on the floor the next morning. But she hoped this would smooth things over, that it would make him see she was trying to be better. Different. Instead of relying on him to scavenge for food while she scrounged for Prax, Emilie had actually surfaced (no small feat, for the tunnel-dwelling ghoul) and had found them at least two dozen cans of food — food that had yet to expire, which was practically unheard of. He wasn’t in their nest when she returned, unsurprisingly, but she didn’t let that deter her. No, she simply scrambled back into the tunnels, determined to find her twin and show him their spoils. It would be a peace treaty, an olive branch that Emilie could only hope he would take, because his avoidance weighed more heavily on Emilie than she could have imagined. But he wasn’t gone yet. Not completely, and she would prove to him that she could be better, just like she promised. If he didn’t see that, well, then she’d just have to make him see it, because an existence without Ezra was unthinkable. They’d been together since before they were born, and if Emilie had any say in the matter, that wouldn’t change now. Her eyes still blown out like huge, black saucers, she moved through the maze of tunnels until she found him, his back to her. “Ezra,” she whispered, already grinning, excited to show him what she’d found for the two of them. Decent, edible food was nearly impossible to come by, and she had an entire satchel of the stuff. -- Ezra was in fact, avoiding. Fiercely. Because he couldn't look her in those hollow fucking eyes and he didn't know what to do about that. So he'd been steering clear, after he'd talked to Jo. He still didn't know what direction to step, what action to take. Mostly because he felt so miserably helpless that he couldn't breathe. It felt like everything ached, body, mind, soul, and he couldn't do a damn thing about it. He didn't know if she even did really notice much that he was avoiding, or if she only was aware half the time whether he was around or not. He flinched when he heard her voice. It was a visible reaction, and tension shot through him tighter than the sort he usually carried by default. He didn't answer verbally, instead just turning to look at her over his shoulder. He didn't look happy to see her. -- Oh, but she saw the way he tensed even in the darkness, could see his hesitance to so much as look at her. But she was going to make it better. That’s what she told herself as she moved forward, closer, but she didn’t reach out to touch him just yet. Emilie was high, but not so high that she thought cornering him would make things better. No, she approached him like one might approach a wounded animal. “Miss you,” she admitted, because it was the truth. He might not have known whether or not she noticed, but fuck, she didn’t just notice. She felt his absence like a giant fucking wound, but it didn’t occur to her that he’d felt that way from the moment she began losing herself to Prax. “Like a ghost. There one second, gone the next. Thin air.” Emilie edged closer, one hand on the flap of her satchel. “Got you something.” -- In a lot of ways, the wounded animal thing was accurate. Ezra fit the bill on a lot of levels, whether or not he would admit it. He kept his eyes on her, wary, not sure what sort of mood she was in right now or what might snap it into something else. He heard the words about his disappearing act. Yeah, that was probably accurate. Ezra was a shadow when he wanted to be. When she started to get a little closer, he moved slightly back, like he expected her to produce a weapon, or try to touch him, or both. “What?” he asked, trying to judge how high she was right then. Because nothing changed, he didn't know when he'd seen her sober last. And he probably never would again, really. -- Her expression was almost childlike when he asked her what she’d brought him. Though it might’ve been hard to tell with those blown out pupils, her eyes lit up, and the line of worry between her black eyebrows smoothed over as she buried her hands into the satchel. She was clearly proud, excited to show him exactly what she’d done. With eager hands, she opened her satchel wide and shoved it forward, the cans of food on display. “Two dozen cans,” she told him, moving forward again, desperate to close the distance between them. “Untouched. Still good, too.” She worried at her lower lip, eager to see how he’d take her thinly veiled attempt at an apology. “You always find the food,” Emilie explained, scratching idly at a cut on her arm that she hadn’t even known was there until she started to pick at it. “You don’t have to for a while, now. You can rest.” Come home. -- He was a little shocked. Emilie had long ago landed gathering of real things to him, her main focus so fully devoted to chasing her next high. So, when he saw the cans, it was definitely surprising. That was effort. Clearly, she expected this to be a bandaid, or maybe she expected it to fix everything, he didn't know. But it was her, taking a step to try and fix things, regardless. He didn't quite know what to say, either. “...I get rest,” he told her. Just not with you there, anymore. Because when you are there, I can't sleep and I barely get any when you aren't. Because this is one big nightmare, and it keeps getting fucking worse. He bit his tongue on all of that. “What do you want?” -- ”What do you want?” Her childlike glee disappeared, shifting instead into something closer to pain. “I don’t … what —“ Emilie didn’t want anything from Ezra in exchange for the food. She just wanted him to come home, to stop shying away from her like she was infectious. She shook her head as if physically clearing the thoughts and confusion that made it so hard for her to make sense these days. “Nothing,” she assured him, and as if to prove the point, she handed him the satchel. “Here, take it. Got it for you.” Emilie knew Ezra better than to think this would fix everything, but if he would just come home (well, to what they called a home, anyway), she’d consider it more than a worthwhile trip. “Don’t like it there without you. ‘Specially not at night.” -- No, you just don't like not having a warm body beside you, Ezra mentally corrected, but again, managed to bite his tongue on. He was quiet, then shook his head, not taking the satchel. “You need it more than I do,” he told her. Which was true. They were both starving via old world standards, but he wasn't also devastating his body with drugs. She was. If anyone needed food, it was Emilie. He wasn't going to take it from her, no matter what was happening. “Why don't you find someone else to sleep there?” he asked, and even if the statement was probably a sharp one, his tone didn't hold that emotion. It was more just an exhausted question. It wasn't like he hadn't seen her around, didn't hear rumors about her and Sparrow. Just because the place was overrun with crazy junkies didn't mean everything out of their mouths was dismissable. -- He wasn’t taking the satchel. He wasn’t fucking taking it, but none of this would work if he didn’t. He had to take it, because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be accepting her apology. She needed him to. Emilie pressed it forward again, a silent plea. “For both of us, then,” she offered, tone pleading. “We’ll share it.” When he asked her why she didn’t find someone else, she looked down at the damp floor of the tunnel. His tone wasn’t mean or accusing, but the question in itself was a hard one to hear. “Just come home,” she said, and when she finally looked back up at him, she reached out to take his hand. “Things’ll be better. We can tell each other a story after we eat.” Her smile was hopeful, a touch of blue back to her otherwise black eyes. “C’mon, Ez. C’mon.” -- He didn't want her to touch him. There were a few reasons for that, but not the smallest was he still didn't trust her as far as he could throw her. And he didn't know if she was going to hurt him, or if he was just going to feel that contact, and that ache inside of him would feel soothed, and he'd sabotage himself. He eyed her, not moving, but he didn't snatch his hand out of her reach when she took it, either. Which was a mistake, he knew that. But the idea of food was a good one. He really didn't know when he'd eaten last, and knew even less when she had. He told himself that he could go back, they could eat something, and he could leave again after. He didn't so much acknowledge anything as he started in the direction of their place, feeling like every step closer was another one he needed to hate himself for. -- He didn’t wrench his hand away as though he’d been burned, so that was a step in the right direction, wasn’t it? Emilie very nearly sobbed with relief but swallowed down the sound and squeezed his hand, that hopeful little smile breaking into something truly joyous. It wasn’t a long walk back to their nest, maybe ten minutes, and the first thing Ezra would notice upon arrival was that she’d taken the time to light all the candles. And for the first time in a long time, their nest was clean. Maybe not by above ground standards, but compared to what it had been before, it was neater. She had picked up the majority of the trash, had swept it out best she could, and she even made their bed, no matter how ratty the blankets and pillows were. Before she got on the wash, Emilie had taken such pride in their little train car. It wasn’t much, but she did her best to keep it homey and bright. That went out the window not long after she became an addict, but it was clear that she was trying. There was no telling how long it would last, but she was obviously making an effort all the same. -- Ezra saw it all. And it broke his heart. It certainly wasn't the first time that she'd decided she was going to do something like that. It made the crash back even harder, every time. Because he knew it for what it was. An effort that was fine at the time, but the second she got what she wanted, she'd fall back. Hell, probably not even waiting that long. This wasn't going to be a real change, this was something she latched onto to make a point, not a sign of new times. The second he was back in that train car with her, he felt that crushing weight on his chest. Like he just couldn't breathe, and it was all breaking. He held it together, but the warmth from the candles, the soft light, the environment worked against him. Because it was almost good. Almost what he wanted. But she was still high, and it was all going to go away so fast, and he knew it. He took the satchel from her and chose some soup, moving to open the can and even heat it up over an old camp stove they had. He didn't say anything, but could feel her there. -- Emilie closed the heavy, sliding door behind them with a metallic bang and a grinding of the old lock and, once he picked out some soup from the cans, she stuffed the satchel behind their mattress. While most of the ghouls knew better than to trespass into other nests, some of them were just stupid enough to try it. Especially now that Emilie was dealing. They had to know that she had a decent supply somewhere. As he busied himself warming up the soup, she took a seat at their makeshift table, painted a bright yellow once upon a time when Emilie decided they needed some color. Now it was peeling and chipped, but it still functioned as a table all the same. “Couldn’t believe the cans were still good,” she mused, still picking at her arm. It had almost been healed until she started at it again, a nervous habit she couldn’t quite curb now. At least her fingers had been set back in the right position, thanks to Penelope. They still ached every now and then, but they were healing. -- Ezra saw her picking at her arm, and silently took the time to take her arm, and wrap a strip of makeshift bandages over it. “Stop,” he told her, voice soft but stern. He didn't keep up contact with her long, not wanting to let himself. He didn't want to get drawn in. As broken as he was, as burned as he was by everything that went on between the two of them, he still loved her with all his heart. Or, he guessed, he loved the ghost of her. He was always going to be lonely and she made that worse, but sometimes it almost felt like it was better. It was afterwards that it was soul crushing. He moved back to the soup, even if it didn’t need his attention to just warm up. -- In truth, she hadn’t even realized she was picking at the old wound until he took her arm, and she blinked at the raw, bloody patch she had caused. Even the brief contact of his hands on her arm while he wrapped the bandage was a breath of fresh air for Emilie. In her delusional brain, she was already picturing the two of them curled up together again, him whispering into her hair as he lulled her to sleep, her legs and arms tangled around him. Emilie wasn’t hungry; the wash curbed her appetite something fierce, but she knew she needed to eat. She had been getting dizzy spells lately, and even though she didn’t feel hungry, she could feel the growling of her stomach as the smell of warm soup permeated their nest. When she curled up in the chair, her long legs pressing against her chest, she looked smaller and younger than she should have, even with all the sharp angles and shadows. “Missed you,” she whispered again, fingers reaching up to brush over the hummingbird necklace she still wore. “Not as dark out when you’re here.” -- “Stop,” he said, voice nearly inaudible. He didn't want to hear that. He didn't want to feel guilty on top of everything else. He just...he wanted to turn back time, and he couldn't, and he knew that. He poured the soup into their bowls, and brought hers to her, sitting down with her. A small concession, but he didn't know if he should do that either. He didn't look at her, didn't want to be noticing that she looked even more emaciated than she had when he'd started avoiding. It hadn't even been that long. Part of him, though, knew that it was the result of him not being there. He made sure she did things like eat, like sleep, like look after herself. She doesn't need you, you're just making it easier for her. He ate the soup, which made his stomach growl when he swallowed it. He'd been hungrier than he'd thought, but sometimes that happened. You just stopped being hungry after a while, even if you desperately needed the food. -- “But I do,” she answered, though she let her voice drift off as he sat down with her. When they first moved into the tunnels, it had been something of a tradition to sit down at dinner together, even if what they had was scraps. It made them feel more human and less like the ghouls. But then she became a ghoul, and tradition went out the window. She didn’t touch her soup right away, too busy staring at Ezra as if she were afraid he was going to vanish into thin air. It wasn’t until she convinced herself that he wouldn’t that she actually lifted the bowl to her lips. Her stomach’s growl answered Ezra’s, but even then she only took a few sips before she sat the bowl back down and rested her chin atop the knees she had pulled up against herself. Emilie didn’t say anything; she only watched him. Her pupils were getting smaller, her fidgeting a little more fervent. She hadn’t had a hit in a few hours, and it wouldn’t be long until she needed another. -- “Emilie – eat.” Ezra's voice was stern again. It wouldn't be the first time he'd have to pester her into it, and he fell into the role without prompting, an automatic reaction. “You need something in your system, and it's already been opened. Don't waste any of it.” He was aware of her even without looking at her, seemingly sensing every errant twitch on her frame. If he had to guess, he would imagine that she was coming down. He didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing since he didn't plan to stay. Some morbid part of him wanted to see if she would put off taking another hit if he was there, or if she would just do it without thinking it through at all. -- “Not hungry,” she told him, and though it was true, she did as he told and took another drink of the soup, but she did it without ever taking her eyes off of him. Emilie wanted to reach out and touch him, to wrap herself around him like a vine so that he couldn’t shake himself free of her. “I had a dream about mom last night,” Emilie admitted. She had no great love for their parents, even if she’d become the very same addict they had been, if not worse. Still, she often wondered about the two of them. Were they alive? Probably not. She didn’t peg them for the type to survive something like this. They likely overdosed together or drank themselves into a coma. “Looked for you after.” She’d been so shaken that, still sweaty and trembling from the dream, she’d gone looking for him in the tunnels, but either he had hidden himself well or she’d been too out of it to find him. -- “Eat anyway,” Ezra told her. When she said she'd dreamed about their mother, he finally looked at her, caught her eye. He let the eye contact stay then. Their mother. She'd been a fucking drunk. Dealing with her had been the training course to dealing with Emilie. So many of Em's behaviors were echoes of their mom's, right up to and including the sweetness being abruptly replaced by vicious anger. Their home hadn't been a good one. He didn't like thinking about it at all if he didn't have to, particularly these days, when Emilie seemed to embody all of it, only worse. “What did you dream?” he asked, not addressing the part where she'd looked for him and not found him. -- “That she was one of them,” Emilie murmured, voice softer than before. It was like she worried about someone else in the room listening. Wash could make you feel like you were flying or drowning, but it could also make you paranoid as fuck. “A biter. She scooped out my insides until there was nothing left. Made a garden out of my entrails.” And the worst part was that Emilie had been so relieved, even as she screamed and howled with agony as she watched her intestines snap and tug free from the hollow her mother had made in her belly. She was so happy to be done. “Then she crawled inside and made herself a home.” Emilie shuddered, though it wasn’t clear whether the tremble was from the memory of the dream or the coming down from the Wash. Already, there was a sheen of sweat to her forehead, and she’d begun subconsciously picking at the makeshift bandage. -- Ezra flinched. He reached out, an automatic gesture, and put his hand on her wrist, thumb brushing lightly back and forth. It was done before he thought about it. The dream made sense to him. He wondered if it did to her. If she got it, what her subconscious was trying to tell her there. Maybe that was the only level she did understand. Some distant firing of neurons in her brain that got it. He noticed the other signs, and still didn't know what she would do. He took his hand away and he held out the bowl to her again. “Just finish eating, okay Em?” he asked. “Maybe you'll feel a little better.” She wouldn't. What was wrong with her wasn't fixable with soup. -- It was so natural for Ezra to comfort her, to take care of her, but she didn’t realize how much she missed it, needed it, until he began avoiding her like the plague. In her more lucid moments, she would recognize that it made sense, that it was her fault, but those were few and far between. She worked on pure instinct now, but Ezra was still one of those instincts. So, when he touched her wrist, she couldn’t help the way she sighed a little, some bit of tension uncoiling from her shoulders. She nodded and took the bowl, even if she knew that eating wouldn’t fix the way she felt. She felt empty and terrified and lonely, and the only thing that could fix that was another hit. Unfortunately, that was one of the things that made her feel so empty. It was a vicious cycle, one that had no end in sight. They tried the detoxing more than once. The last time, she nearly died in Ezra’s arms from a seizure. There was no hope for Emilie. “Feel better now that you’re back,” she told him, lowering her lips to the bowl. It hadn’t occurred to her yet that he might not be staying. -- There was a wince from him at the statement. Because he didn't think he was. He hadn't made the move out yet, he was still lingering because he just didn't know what to do, but he knew this was poison for him. This whole circumstance. Because the turn wasn't that far around the corner, he knew it. He didn't know what it would be. But he did very abruptly remember the screams of the guy she'd fed to the dogs, and that had him snatching his hand back and he walked away from the table. He couldn't just forget. He couldn't just...live like this. -- Just as quickly as Emilie was beginning to feel herself claw at some sliver of hope that things would be okay between them, he was ripping his hand away and moving away from the table. She blinked, wounded, and curled her arms tighter around herself, the bowl of soup forgotten once again. “You are back, aren’t you?” she asked hesitantly, afraid to hear his response. Fuck, she needed a hit. She needed to snort two gorgeous, bright lines of the crystalline powder until the hollow ache in her chest disappeared, but she was trying to be better. Emilie couldn’t quit, but maybe she could tone it down. She tried it before, countless times, and it always turned out the same way. She’d do well for a while, would tell him everything was going to be better, then crash. “You’re back, right? Right?” -- Ezra shook his head, dragging his hand over his short cropped hair. “I don't know, Emilie,” he told her, just being honest. “I don't fucking know. Nothing's changed. Nothing's gonna change. You're still just...” he didn't launch back into it. After all, he'd already said it all hadn't he? Sure he had, and it had meant nothing. He didn't even think it had sank in, really. All she'd been upset about was she wasn't getting her own way, that he was upset with her. Nothing about what she'd become, things she'd done. It was all hollow. Everything was hollow. “You're sitting there right now, not even eating food in front of you which you need to survive, and you're already waiting for the next hit. Bet you'd go for that before the food, and--” he stopped himself. Again. -- ”Nothing’s changed.” It was true, of course, but she didn’t see it that way. In her eyes, she was trying. She’d gone above ground, something she hadn’t done voluntarily in months, had found them food, was trying to be the girl he loved. Was that not worth anything? No, it wasn’t, because it wouldn’t last. It never did. When he pointed out that she hadn’t eaten the food, she scooped up the bowl and swallowed it all down without pause. “I’ll eat!” she coughed, nearly choking from the large gulps she’d taken. “I’ll eat, Ezra. I’ll change. I’m trying.” -- That was the hardest thing. He leaned back against the wall, eyes shutting and he thunked his head back against the metal behind him. “I know you are,” he said softly, voice hollow. “I know. Just like you've tried before, and I know how this play ends, Emmy. So do you.” He hated when she sounded like this. When he knew she really was putting in effort. Before, it had even been believable. She'd do it for a while. Now? It wasn't sustainable even long enough to give him a glimmer of false hope. All it did was make him feel like there was a vice grip on his heart. -- He sounded so hollow, so empty, and she realized — truly, truly realized — that he had zero hope in Emilie and her ability to change. And why would he? Just like he said, she’d done this exact thing before. She would go into it with the best intentions, would want to change for him, but it never happened. It couldn’t, because Wash wasn’t something you came back from. But, God, he called her Emmy, and when she blinked, she felt hot tears against her cheeks, because she wanted to be Emmy. She wanted to be the girl he loved, not the one who he was burdened with. She just didn’t know how to be that girl anymore, and even if she did, the drug wouldn’t let her. “Maybe this time’ll be different,” she whispered, but even she sounded like she didn’t believe it for a second. -- Ezra swallowed at the lump in his throat, and shook his head, gaze hitting the floor. He shook his head in silent answer, because he couldn't bare to lie to himself on it anymore. And since things had gone so sideways, he was finding it so hard to lie to her too. “You just aren't used to me being gone. You don't want to sleep by yourself. But the only thing you really care about, Emmy, is your next fix, and we both...we both know that, okay? We both know and we should just stop pretending.” He probably had more to say but he didn't. It almost felt like a physical weight, being in there with her. A weight that would only get heavier. -- The tears were coming harder now, though they were still silent save for the sniffles that came with. “Not true,” she said with a shake of her head. “I love you.” She knew he didn’t believe her, could even understand why he didn’t, but she needed him to hear it, even if he didn’t believe it. There was no one else left that she loved, not even herself, but she desperately loved Ezra. But love didn’t fix everything, and it certainly didn’t fix Emilie. “You’re gonna leave me,” Emilie whispered, trembling, already so much sweatier than she’d been just minutes before. “Gonna leave me, and I —“ She didn’t know how to live without Ezra. She wouldn’t. How could she, when she’d never done it before? “I’m scared. Just … just don’t go. Stay. Not as dark when you’re here,” she said again. “Please.” -- He hated this. It was why he'd been avoiding in the first place. Because of this. This conversation, this feeling, this mix of poisonous emotions just settling into his bones. He rubbed at his eye sockets, pushing the heels of his hands in til he saw flashes of random pattered light. “For you,” he found himself saying. “It's not as dark when I'm here for you.” He didn't know if she'd understand the implication there, didn't know if she was too close to needing her next fix to even concentrate enough on it to try. But it was put out there, just in case. -- She did understand the implication, and it settled over her like a death pall. She sniffled again, hard, and pressed her face into her knees because she thought she might fall apart into a thousand sharp, tiny shards if she looked at him right then. He didn’t say he wasn’t leaving. Emilie knew the truth, and she just couldn’t stomach it. She literally couldn’t imagine a life without Ezra in it. How would that even work? It wouldn’t. He was the only good part of her left, and if he was gone, then what would be the point of even trying? Any hope she might have felt earlier in the evening, when she’d been so childishly happy about giving him that food, was long gone. She felt every hollow space, every broken piece of her psyche, and she knew that the second Ezra left, she was going to take a hit. But she wasn’t going to snort it. “Where will you go?” Would she see him again? Would he just disappear into nothingness? -- “I don't know. I haven't--” he shook his head, and slid down the wall. “I keep trying to leave.” And he hadn't yet. What was he waiting for? He didn't even know anymore, really. Or, maybe it was just because he couldn't imagine life without her either, even if he was suffocating even being in the same room. God, it was so damaged. They were both so, so damaged. “I feel like you died,” he said, not quite to her. Almost to himself. -- “Maybe it’d be better if I had,” Emilie whispered, and she meant every word. Maybe things would have been better all around if the raiders had killed her that night, if they just actually made sure she was dead instead of assuming. She wouldn’t have ever gotten on Prax, and she wouldn’t be staring down a future without Ezra. Whatever she did, she would make sure it was a short future. I’ll die if you leave, she wanted to say, but she bit her tongue hard enough to taste blood. Slowly, she crawled out of the chair, on her hands and knees until she reached him, and she sat in front of him, hands curling atop his knees. “Don’t go. Stay with me, down here, where it’s safe.” -- He looked up at that, and shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “Maybe it'd be better if we both had,” he told her. Like if they'd just been killed that night, ages ago. Skipped all of this and gone out before everything was so fucking broken. He looked at her, so much closer, and all he wanted to do was pull her to him, to hold her as tight as he could, and prolong the moment until it all went stupid again. Until she found whatever she was taking and had some more, until she hit her swing and pushed him away and got angry and hurt him. “So I can watch you kill yourself? And innocent people?” he asked, voice barely there. -- Emilie was going to die either way, but now she would die alone. She would die in the dark, just like the rat that the hounds said she was. She could already imagine Bishop chuckling to himself if they found her, making some remark about the soulmate she’d been so adamant about before. “Now you won’t have to watch,” she said, wiping at her tears the best she could even if they were instantly replaced with more. Emilie shuddered through a silent sob and looked at her hands where they sat once again on his knees. “Wish you wouldn’t have called me Emmy tonight. It makes it —“ She shook her head and peeled herself away from him, because she knew if she had her way, she would wrap herself around him like a child. -- It was a good thing she moved, because he'd been about to pull her in and kiss her. He didn't know where the impulse had come from, or why he felt it so strongly just then, but he had. Desperation, trying to hold onto something that wasn't there anymore. Desperation for contact that didn't hurt. For anything that didn't hurt. “I know you're dealing. Making others into you. Killing everyone else, just like you're killing yourself.” Ezra bit at his lip hard enough to taste blood. “Jo's alive. I saw her. She thinks you can be saved. That you're still in there somewhere.” -- He hadn’t even told her that Jo was alive. He’d been so busy avoiding her that he hadn’t told her that the one other person who had given a shit about her, the one who had been closer to a mother than her own, was alive. Emilie’s eyes widened with shock, her mouth dropping open in a silent gasp. Losing Jo had been a blow that Emilie never really recovered from. She swallowed her shock best as she could, knowing she’d be running straight into her mother figure’s arms as soon as she shot up and numbed some of the pain. “But you don’t think so,” she said quietly, remembering all too well their last exchange. He told her that there wasn’t any part of Emilie left in her. “And if you don’t think so,” Emilie whispered, subconsciously digging her nail into the bandage, where the wound itched beneath. “Then I guess you’re right.” -- He looked up at her, and pushed himself to his feet. He walked closer, watching her eyes, and stopped inside her personal space, almost taking a step further to make her retreat against the wall, but he managed to stop himself from that. He didn't say anything immediately, just watching those eyes, seeing the sweat sheen on her form, listening to her breathing, that wasn't quite regular. “Do you think you can be saved, Emilie? That you're actually you anymore? When's the last time you felt anything?” he asked, voice actually almost a soft caress. “You don't even really miss me. You just miss the warmth beside you in bed, and feeling like you aren't alone. You're just lonely. I know the feeling.” -- Emilie was the one who usually invaded the space of others, not the other way around, and she actually seemed to physically withdraw in on herself when Ezra stood and closed the distance between them. He only had a couple of inches on her, but she felt smaller right then than she could remember feeling in a very long time. Then he asked her if she thought she could be saved, and what little control she had on her emotions dissolved right then and there with a long, pitiful sound of sorrow. “No,” she sobbed. “Can’t be saved. I wanna be, but —“ But there was no saving her. She wasn’t a princess in a tower, and Ezra wasn’t the prince who would come riding in to rescue her. “I want to be her. I thought maybe if I could pretend, that I might remember how. Sometimes I feel it, but then it hurts.” It was why she started the Prax to begin with, to numb the pain. Unfortunately, it numbed everything. “The only time I feel anything is when I’m with you.” Emilie was a walking, talking corpse, but there were times, in the quiet moments shared between she and Ezra — his fingers in her hair as they told a story, her breath warm against his cheek — when she actually felt something. Alive. She felt something then, didn’t she? She felt heart wrenching pain, because she knew Ezra was going to leave her. He promised he would never leave, but he was going to. And then … well, she was almost positive she’d just cease to exist. -- He didn't say what was on his mind. It felt cruel, so he just kept it to himself, even if he almost felt like he owed himself the ability to say it. That sure, she found that to dull her pain, meanwhile making his exponentially worse. Because she didn't give a shit about what anyone else was going through, just herself. It wouldn't do any good, either way. All it would do would make her feel bad in the moment and it wouldn't matter later, when she took her next hit anyway. They'd done so many versions of this kind of song and dance, he knew exactly how it would all go, and just how hopeless it was. The trouble he was having was that he didn't really believe that she felt anything with him anymore, either. If that were true, he had to imagine that he would simply matter to her more. That she would care about him, not just him not catering to what she wanted out of him. They were different things, and he didn't think she understood that. “You're never even sober around me anymore, Em, I--” he began, but stopped. It's futile. He didn't try to redirect, or come up with other words for her. Or, he thought he wasn't going to. Then, in one last ditch effort, he said one last thing. “Come with me. We'll leave. Find another shelter. You can leave the Prax, and we'll figure it out. You want me, you miss me, you love me - come with me. I can’t do this,” he gestured around the room, “anymore. So just come with me.” -- It wasn’t that simple. Even if Emilie could leave the Prax behind, it wouldn’t leave her. Even now, just hours after her last hit, she was physically aching with the need for another. Before long, maybe another hour, the ache would turn to an all out pain. The shivers would start, her teeth would chatter, and her muscles would scream for release. The last time they tried to leave it behind, it ended with her nearly dying. She fell silent, save for her little sobs, because she knew she couldn’t. She did want Ezra. She did miss him. She loved him, but none of those things meant she could leave the Prax behind. Emilie wanted to. Right then, she wanted to take his hand and run as far and as fast as they could go. But she didn’t. “I can’t,” she whispered, vision blurry from tears. “I want to, but —“ She grabbed him, then, her wiry arms shooting around his middle and clinging to him, her wet face pressed to his chest. “Stay with me. Staystaystay.” -- He didn't know why it came as such a crushing sort of blow that she wouldn't even try. That she wouldn't even get to the entrance of the tunnels with him before backing out. But it was like she sucker punched him, and he'd thought that he was hurting as much as he possibly could and he'd been wrong on that. He was still as a statue when she clung to him, and he stared at nothing, til his eyes caught 'going going going' on the wall where he'd scribbled the word continually. The echoes of him knew. Had known for a long time. When he spoke it wasn't just hollow it was flat. “You know how you say you take that shit because of the pain?” he said. “That's me, all the fucking time, and every time you take another hit, it just feels worse, and you're leaving me here to deal with all the sharp edges alone.” “And maybe I could do it for a while and maybe I could even put up with the mood swings when you'd turn on a dime then hurt me, but now you're...” Just a hollow monster with no humanity left. He swallowed, leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, then put his hands on her shoulders to push her back from him. “I can't do this anymore.” -- She listened to what he said, to the flat cadence of his words, but there was nothing she could say. She could promise to change, but they both knew it wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t. No, no, no, no. That’s all Emilie could piece together, the only thing that made sense in the jumbled maze of her thoughts. This was actually happening; it wasn’t some drug-induced nightmare, not something she would wake up from. Ezra was going to leave her. He was going to leave her down here. When he moved his hands to her shoulders to try and push her away, Emilie clung harder, linking her fingers behind his back and holding tighter, like a child whose parent was trying to leave them on the first day of kindergarten. “No,” she gasped, tears leaving wet stains against his shirt. “You can’t. Ezra, you can’t. Don’t go. Stay. Stay. Please.” Now, her sobs were so hard and fierce that she practically choked on them. “You promised. Promised.” -- He was at his limit the end of it all. He knew that. He wished that things were different but he'd been wishing that for what felt like forever. “You left me forever ago,” he told her, “I can't watch this anymore, can't...can't be part--” he needed to stop trying to explain himself. It was falling on ears that had gone deaf ages ago. Nothing would matter. It hadn't before it wouldn't now. She just wanted what she wanted and fuck his needs or desires. It was about her. It was always about her. And it always would be. “Let go.” -- “No,” she whimpered, grip as tight as it had been before. “No, Ezra. You can’t go. I’ll play pretend some more. I’ll remember how to be her.” Emilie didn’t let him go, but she did look up at him through her tear-blurred eyes, more blue than black now that the Prax was slowly being flushed from her system. “I’ll remember. Just let me try to remember. You can’t go.” Couldn’t he see that? They just didn’t operate without the other. Emilie didn’t know how. Even before they were fucking born, she had him right next to her, his heartbeat her constant companion. “I promise I’ll remember.” -- They'd just had this conversation, and they'd both managed to be honest for a minute. But here she was, begging, and he understood, he really did – but he just knew the truth and knew if he didn't get out of here, he was going to kill himself. And some shred of him wanted to try to live before he did that. He didn't know if he'd make it very long either, but he had to try, didn't he? He had to give it a shot, at the very least. Someplace that wasn't fucking underground, where people did the things ghouls did to people. Ezra was ruthless, what he wasn't was sick or cruel. But she was both of those things, and had been for far longer than he wanted to even admit to himself, in his clearest moments. “Let go,” he told her again. -- Emilie didn’t think she could let go, because she knew the moment she let him go, he would leave. He would be gone, quick as a shadow, and the thought was like a very real, very heavy weight on her chest. “Ezra,” she whimpered, eyes shut tight because she couldn’t look at him. “Ezra, please don’t leave me.” Then, in a moment of some sort of clarity, she loosened her grip on him, moved her hands to his instead of the vice grip they had on his back. It wasn’t often that Emilie had lucid thoughts, but right then, she realized with perfect, terrible clarity that Ezra was miserable, and it was her fault. She was killing herself, and she was killing him with her. Slowly, she dropped his hands and took a step back, arms wrapped around herself, her expression nothing but agony. Emilie was going to die alone, but maybe Ezra wouldn’t have to. -- His heart ached. This was part of why he had to get out of here too, with so much damage between them. All he wanted to do was hug her and tell her it would be okay, seeing that expression on her features. But that was what had started the cycle in the first place. Why it had gone on this far. Because he would get sucked back in then the active lying to himself would start in earnest and the abuse would be back in play on her end and it just...kept swinging around and it had gotten to the point where there weren't good times in between. Where she fed people to dogs in her spare time instead. He turned and walked away, leaving everything behind. Literally everything. He didn't take his backpack, anything in it. He didn't take his splitting maul. He'd find new things. If he stayed a minute longer, his resolve might break, and he'd be swallowed whole by her darkness. -- If her sobs had been intense before, now they were body-wracking. She watched him turn, fought every single fucking instinct she had not to tackle him and hold him there, to keep him with her, and when he left the train car, what tiny, frayed piece of herself she still had shattered. And she screamed. It was a terrible sound, raw and curdling and broken apart by sobs, and within moments he’d hear the telltale sound of things breaking. She ripped up their mattress, threw it across the room, shattered every bowl and plate and object she could get her hands on. By the time she was finished, the train car that she’d cleaned just an hour before was a mess of broken things and melted, burnt out candles. Then, when she was left with nothing but the darkness and the silence, she collapsed to her knees, the only sound her wet sobs, and she crawled to the tin that held the Prax. This time, she didn’t snort it. What was the point? Ezra was the one who wanted her to stop injecting, and he was gone. He left. So, with a sharp gasp and a press of the needle, she deposited the wash in the crook of her elbow. It wasn’t long before her sobs died down to whimpers, then to nothing altogether, and she stared at the cracked ceiling as the drug took her back to a place where nothing hurt. |