tristan larsen. (triste) wrote in thecaldera, @ 2018-05-03 13:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! log, leela joshi, tristan larsen |
WHO: Leela Joshi & Tristan Larsen
WHEN: [BACKDATED] April 21, after Tristan gets rescued.
WHERE: Vigil Memorial Hospital
WHAT: Tristan wakes up from residual nightmares from the trees; has a chat with Leela.
WARNINGS: N/A
It's over, Tristan. I hate you, dad! I think you should go. Tristan doesn't know where he is, but he's certain he's stuck in a nightmare. Everything is dark. All he can see is a vague image of Leela and their kids. His wife doesn't look him in the eye, disappointed and resigned. Tommy is screaming and hurling hurtful remarks at him. Jackie is crying and clinging to her mother. Tristan doesn't like this. He wants to fix it. He wants to fix his family. He tries to run towards them, but he never seems to get any closer. They just keep on slipping through his fingers, pushing him away and saying goodbye. He calls after them, screaming and crying out their names, but they just leave him behind and don't look back. As they fade, Tristan suddenly wakes up with a jolt, wide eyed and gasping for air. The sudden movement brings Leela to attention. She sits upright in the drab and stiff armchair next to his bed, where she’s been waiting for him to wake up. “Hey.” She speaks quietly, cautiously, “How do you feel?” He pants, breathing heavily as he looks around him in alarm. "Where am I? What happened?" His gaze lands on Leela and then he remembers the woods, his nightmare. He blinks, pausing to take her in and to make sure she's really there in front of him. He feels surprise, delight, and sadness all at the same time, an overwhelming mix just by her mere presence. "You're here…" he says softly as he sinks back into his bed, his eyes never leaving her. On the other hand, Leela’s gaze drops almost instantly - like an awkward reluctance to admit that she cared enough to wait by his bedside. “You shouldn’t wake up to an empty room,” she reasons feebly. He lowers his gaze and nods, his shoulders dropping. "Yeah… I suppose that would suck," he agrees weakly, briefly imagining himself waking up to an empty room. He feels a tiny ache in his chest. "But I wouldn't blame you, I guess…" he sighs inwardly, turning away and looking up the ceiling. He frowns. "I mean—it would hurt," he admits a little too strongly, raising his voice. "But—" he pauses, sighing one more time. He shakes his head and mutters, "Anyway. Whatever. I guess it doesn't matter." Leela’s eyebrows furrow at the inflection in his voice and her jaw sets as her eyes dart back to him. But her snippy retorts die on her tongue at the sight of her ex-husband, bedridden. She looks away, swallows her anger, and looks back to Tristan. A rare display of self-restraint. “How do you feel?” She asks instead, again. "Fine," he mumbles, picking at the loose threads of his blanket. "Nothing really hurts. I should probably be out tomorrow or something." He glances at her. "How are the kids? Do they know I'm here?" Leela nods. “They just think you’re sick. I didn’t think they should-” she looks at the IV in his arm and how tired and haggard he looks from days without sustenance or sun. He doesn’t look like himself. See you like this, she thinks. “-be here,” she says instead. Tristan nods in return. "That's alright. I'll see them when I get out." He glances at her again, quiet for a moment. His hand twitches, wanting to reach out to her and hold her. "And you? How are you?" “I’m fine,” she responds, looking anything but. She looks tired - physically, emotionally, mentally - and she knows it. But she doesn’t look as bad as him. Leela glances at her ex-husband and a twinge of guilt nags at her as she takes in his state. There’s a part of her that wonders if this wouldn’t have happened to him if she had been more forthcoming. If he had known to be careful. “I need to tell you something,” she decides. He blinks, wondering what it could be. He dreads the worst, but hopes it's not what his nightmare showed him. "What is it?" “So,” Leela hesitates. Her arms cross over her chest and her eyes drop to the edge of the bed. “Things have been a little weird lately. I’ve been-” There’s another quiet moment as she chooses her words - rare for a woman who always ran her mouth with little thought, so sure of everything she had to say. Then, she continues - “You know those billboards asking if the crows are acting weird? It’s because they are. They’re going around to people and talking to them and-” she looks at him, briefly, “-one came into the shop a few weeks ago and talked to me, too.” "A talking crow," Tristan repeats, brows raising. It sounds absurd and he isn't sure if he's hearing Leela right. He remembers the billboards, but didn't think it'd be about talking crows. He stares and blinks at his ex-wife, waiting for her to continue. "And? What did it say to you?" “It told me I was given something, which didn’t make a lot of sense until this week.” She hesitates again. “I’ve started seeing things I’m not supposed to see.” She lifts her chin to meet Tristan’s eyes. “Anyway, I’m telling you this because- I don’t know, just be careful. About things that might not seem normal.” Tristan doesn't know what to say. Perhaps if he wasn't bedridden and if things haven't been so weird between them, he'd be more animated, more like himself. As it stands, he just merely nods and says, "That sounds like a lot of information to process, but I believe you so… thanks for the heads up." He briefly smiles at her, crooked and uncertain. A flash of worry crosses Leela’s eyes. This isn’t what she’s expecting. She’s expecting a fight. A stronger response. Something. Her voice is quiet as she asks “What happened?” "What do you mean what happened?" He echoes. "What happened in the woods?" Immediately, Leela’s gaze drops. She remembers that he doesn’t owe her anything anymore. She withdraws, both physically and in manner. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” He takes her in for a moment, regarding her and studying the way she moves and speaks. It feels like he hasn't properly looked at her in a while. She has always had that fire in her, ready to scald and burn whenever she wanted it to. It may feel odd to Tristan now, but a part of him is also thankful that for once, she isn't yelling or snapping at him. "Hey… come here," he says softly, reaching for her hand and urging her to come closer. She does - letting him take her hand and edging closer to his bedside. He smiles a little bit at her, wondering if she had been worried about him disappearing. He hopes she was. "I'll tell you what happened." And so he tells her, starting from the familiar scents that lured him into the woods, to the heavy dread he felt before the trees attacked him. "And after that, I was stuck in some nightmare, a very vivid nightmare, like I could see all the things I feared the most happening in front of me. It was horrible." He shakes his head as he lowers his gaze, remembering the last nightmare he had before waking up. "But I'm awake now and thankfully alive, so all's well that ends well, right?" He looks back up at Leela, laughing a bit to try and ease the mood. But Leela’s expression doesn’t lighten. “Right,” she answers absently. Her thumb draws circles on his hand before she seems to realize what she’s doing and pulls away. “Let’s keep it that way. The kids need their father, Tristan.” But do you need me? He wonders, a question he already knows the answer to. He maintains smiling at her even as she pulls her hand away. Though there's still an ache in his chest, he chooses to focus on the fact Leela's with him right now, and that at least makes him happy. "Yeah, don't worry. I'll be around for a long time." |