[Dane Wayland]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark-o"]

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark"]

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark-title"]ARE YOU READY FOR MY SOUL

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark-subtitle"]what if i'm broken from the start and what if i never heal?

It'd been a couple of weeks since his mother died and Dane was still ignoring messages, dodging calls, and avoiding the (very few) people in his life who cared or even knew enough to feel the need to check up on him. He hadn't talked to anyone except, surprisingly, his father. The pair of them had picked about the ruined rubble of their burned-out house, looking for anything to salvage and not sure how to be around one another. Mona had always been their buffer when Guild concerns weren't involved; the only reason they came together at all when it wasn't work-related. And the weight of her absence was far heavier, far more severe, than her presence had ever been. But they'd still managed a few words. A couple of meager, inadequate exchanges that were somehow too much as they were too little. [break][break]

After returning to Los Eurosia, he'd only managed brief snippets of sleep. Never long enough to feel actually rested. He could feel the weight of it collected below his eyes and thick in his head. Eventually, he'd decided to wander into a few bars and clubs like he normally did when only someone else's bed could provide relief. [break][break]

But his heart hadn't been in it. He'd been too tired, too absent, and the usual company was wrong. He didn't know how to seek the comfort he needed. Didn't know how to ask for it. Didn't know how he was supposed to pay for it or earn it in anything other than sweat and sex, which required an effort and verve he was sorely exhausted of. He couldn't smile and laugh and flirt. Couldn't even pretend to. And after being apprehended a few times by familiar faces — all of them too energetic and happy to want to deal with him (and vice versa) — he'd decided the bars and clubs wouldn't work. [break][break]

He wandered the streets for a while, feeling a bit like an aimless, wounded stray — one arm cast in a sling, the other wrapped in bandages under his clothes, and his step stilted on healing legs — and eventually found himself in a slightly higher-end establishment. Almost like a jazz bar but not quite so pretentious. It was a place he'd taken classier dates when pretending to be someone more sophisticated than he was. When he was trying to win the fleeting affections of a woman who preferred wine to jello shots and whom conversation with was more of a challenge. [break][break]

He'd tucked himself at a table in the back. Ordered wine — white, not red, for no real reason other than it wasn't what he'd usually do — and listened to various people climb on stage to sing and perform at the open mic. He tried to let it lull him. The atmosphere was easy, light, and comfortable. The people only spoke quietly, chuckling among one another with a familiarity and enjoyment far different than the brand he'd escaped but still too wrong for him to want to try and imitate. [break][break]

He'd managed one glass. Was asked by a person waiting tables if he was okay when he'd managed to doze just a bit. He assured her he was, lying through his teeth (and clearly not convincing her), and asked for a refill. Then, without really thinking about it, he pulled out his phone and opened his web browser, not really considering what it was he was searching for until he was staring at it. He pursed his lips and lifted his eyes to watch the person currently singing a quiet cover of some sad, heart-achy tune on the low, cozy stage. [break][break]

Vivienne had told him he should talk to someone. Suggested a group she knew of for people who'd lost loved ones. And he'd laughed at her. Assured her in no uncertain, friendly terms that his mother wasn't the first person he'd loved and lost and that he'd much rather die in a gunfight than subject himself to such a thing. She'd nodded, clearly expecting as much, and then she'd left him there. Hadn't tried to convince him or reason with him. She'd only stood and stared down at him for a long, cold moment — until he'd forced his gaze away, feeling once more chided. Then she'd left without a word, making him eventually wish he'd said something else as he lifted his eyes to the door shut behind her.[break][break]

The performer finished and the people made their quiet appreciation known through soft claps and kind calls. Then the room sifted back into a casual sort of chatty calm and, for a long while, no one stepped forward to take the singer's vacant place. [break][break]

Dane hadn't even recognized that he'd stood until he was halfway to the stage, fingers clenched around the phone at his side. A few people glanced at him as he passed their tables and he tried not to wonder what crossed their mind at the sight of him. Disheveled and sleepless. Drugs, maybe? The idea might have made him chuckle — he might have liked the thought of being discomforting and hilariously out of place on any other day — but right now he only wished they looked away. He winced as he stepped on the stage, demanding their attention regardless. [break][break]

He moved too close to the open mic and there was a shrill moment of feedback that made him flinch. He drew just enough back for the whine to stop. "Sorry." He screwed his eyes against the dim lights that shined from the ceiling and onto the stage, still finding them too bright and too warm in his state. "My uhm... my mom taught me this song when I was a kid." His voice was quiet, nearly toneless, as he cast his gaze about the people directly beneath him; upon the open faces turned to him, watching. Respectful and mutedly curious. He almost didn't know what to do under their stares. What he was expected to feel.[break][break]

"I would sing and she would play the piano. I was like six... I didn't know what it was about then. Hell," he shrugged, head dropping and brow giving a tiny leap before he smoothed it back with a couple of slow blinks. "Maybe I still don't. But... it was beautiful and she loved it. So I loved it. And I've only listened to it thousands of times since then." [break][break]

He cleared his throat and shifted his weight, brow knitting while his tongue darted with uncertainty over his lips. Did people do this? Was this how people did this? He was almost sure it wasn't the right place. "We buried her this month." He lifted a hand to smooth across his mouth, as if suddenly desiring to smother the words back where they'd come from and confess nothing at all. He tipped his head and continued quickly, not wanting the admittance to linger. [break][break]

"But uh... she later taught me how to play it on the piano myself. And I really wish I could but... well... I'm sort of in a bad way right now," he chanced lifting his eyes finally as he gave his slung arm a little, acknowledging bounce and breathed a quiet, vacant laugh — a chuckle that was hollow except for a subtle undertone of self-deprecation toward the blatant and obvious truth in it. He knew how he must have looked to them, with dark, yellowing bruises peeking from the collar of his shirt and only slightly subtler shadows under his eyes. But it was what he had wanted when he asked Vivienne to let him heal naturally. For someone to look at him and see the hurts made physical. [break][break]

He hesitated again, dropping his eye to the phone in his hand. He unlocked it and frowned at the screen. "But I've pulled the sheet music up, if someone... might...?" He lifted his chin and cast his gaze about, feeling a hopeful sort of desperation crop in his chest that was uncomfortably alien to him. Still unsure how to ask someone to do something like this for him. How he could expect them to, why they would, and what he would do if they didn't... [break][break]

Only a brief moment passed and someone stood from their seat and moved toward the small stage. A woman he'd watched perform only a little while earlier. Dane — feeling weirdly grateful and surprised — stepped slightly back from the microphone, a wavering breath huffing through his nose, and then moved forward to offer a hand to her as she stepped up. "Thank you, I appr... thank you." He handed off his phone and watched her settle at the piano, then stepped back to the microphone stand. After a moment, they exchanged a look and Dane dipped his chin. [break][break]

He had to steel himself when the first few chords toned, mind immediately turning with images of his childhood home, awash with sunlight from tall windows, and his mother watching him with bright, expectant eyes while she smiled at him over the piano in the den. Nodding encouragingly, lips pulled wide. He knew the arrangement of notes in his bones, could hum them in his sleep or pick them out if they played on the quietest speakers in the loudest room, but they'd never sound quite as they did then, in his memory — when she had played them for him. The knowledge fluttered at something in his chest that he had to carefully clamp down as he swallowed and readied himself. [break][break]

"I've heard there was a secret chord[break]
That David played and it pleased the Lord[break]
But you don't really care for music, do you?"[break][break]

She'd always told him he had a decent singing voice. Begged him sometimes, on those nights he spent home, to sing for her on the back patio. Only when the stars were out and after she'd had too much wine. It had always been a dependable sign that he had only a half-hour or so longer before she was gone and he'd have to carry her up the stairs and to her bed. He would sometimes hum for her then, if she stirred to awareness enough to reach for him after he'd tucked her in and was making to leave. [break][break]

But she'd never heard him sing any other song. And there was no other song he knew quite so intimately. This one had coaxed him to sleep on repeat during those long nights when sleep had evaded him too long yet still felt impossible. When he could weep for the want and need of it. He knew where each rise belonged more than he knew anything. Where the voice was supposed to shake. Where he was meant to hold and quiver. Where he was supposed to sound weak. [break][break]

"Your faith was strong but you needed proof[break]
You saw her bathing on the roof[break]
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you[break]
She tied you to a kitchen chair[break]
She broke your throne, she cut your hair[break]
And from your lips, she drew the hallelujah"[break][break]

He had to close his eyes. Felt wetness gathered in the corners of them as he shifted his weight, determined to not allow it to well any further. Even as the climb of the music and the increasing volume of his voice tried to pull it out of him from somewhere deep, he only pressed his eyes tighter and tied it down.[break][break]

"There was a time you let me know[break]
What's real and going on below[break]
But now you never show it to me, do you?[break]
And remember when I moved in you?[break]
The holy dark was moving, too[break]
And every breath we drew was hallelujah"[break][break]

He opened his eyes, free now from the threat of tears, and finished the song in a sort of unfeeling haze. When it was done, he cleared his throat and turned immediately to nod his appreciation to the woman at the piano, then muffled a quick 'thanks' into the mic and stepped off the stage to retreat back to his table at the back. Lips pulled tight and eyes steeled against any looks that lifted to him. He settled in his seat, tossed back the rest of his second glass of wine, and watched his tabletop without really seeing it — then startled when the woman who'd played with him slid his forgotten phone across the table.[break][break]

"Oh, thank you. Sorry, I'm —" he stopped as she placed a hand over his arm and only nodded, turning away and moving back to her own table somewhere across the room. He watched her retreat, reminded briefly of the closed door behind Vivienne, and shook his head with another quiet laugh, gaze drawing back to the tabletop.

are you steady?[break]are you alarmed that i'm incomplete?

Tag: Evening Cadieux[break]
This is a follow-up to this one-shot! I've included the song sung under the cut. And if you listen to anything other than the Rufus Wainwright cover you are W R O N G~ [break][break]

SPOILER: Click to show

[break]

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[Evening Cadieux]

[nospaces]

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[attr="class","Evepostname"]evening cadieux

[break]

[attr="class","Evepostlyric"]Sitting in the silence,[break]I gave my best; I tried

[attr="class","Evepostingbox"]
It was a warm place. Cosy. Low lighting and soft seats, with an open mic and gentle atmosphere that was sophisticated but not so much that it could be called snobbish. Not the type of place where anyone would drink enough to become rowdy – not without raising enough eyebrows to get them gently ushered out by staff.[break][break]

For these reasons, it was perhaps one of the few alcohol-serving establishments that she felt completely safe in. Bad people didn’t go there. Or at least, they didn’t go there with intentions of getting violent.[break][break]

Evening swirled a finger around the rim of her wine glass, trying to make it sing. Girls’ night (which for Evening and Maheep consisted of catching up over a bottle of red at a nice bar/lounge) had turned into Girls’-and-one-guy’s-night, as a man from a neighbouring table had bonded with Maheep over a musician they enjoyed and he'd stayed to keep talking to her long after his friends had left. His name was Paul. He smiled easily, had a tendency towards self-deprecation, and he thought Maheep was very funny, very smart, and very, very pretty.[break][break]

Evening was content to take a backseat and let them talk. She could enjoy the ambience and the taste of Merlot without talking, and more importantly, Maheep liked Paul too. Why get in the way of that?[break][break]

The squeal of the mic interrupted the serenity and she winced, embarrassed on behalf of the next performer who was likely new to their craft or perhaps just a bit clumsy. She glanced up when they apologised, thinking that, even though her table was many rows away from the stage, the person might look her way and she could give them an encouraging nod or smile –[break][break]

It was a gut punch. Tearing a fathomless pit where her stomach should be while simultaneously threatening to bring up its contents. Air was forced from her lungs and she desperately tried not to choke on it, praying her wordless sputter was neither loud enough to interrupt him (that would be rude) nor attract his attention (that would be life-threatening).[break][break]

Thankfully no one looked her way, not even Maheep and Paul beside her who were too engrossed in their conversation to notice her panic. Her heart pounded in her ears. A drop of sweat slipped down the nape of her neck, between her shoulder blades, along her spine, and she shrank back into her seat, shaking fingers rising to rest on her clamped-shut lips.[break][break]

She knew the man on stage. The man from the warehouse. She didn’t need him to be splattered in blood to recognise him. Didn’t need there to be a pony-sized dog by his side or a glinting knife in his grip. She would recognise his face anywhere.[break][break]

That wasn’t to say he looked like a regular civilian, someone normal and inoffensive when he wasn't at a crime scene, who she might have passed on the street without too much notice. He looked… unwell. Dishevelled. One arm in a sling and one leg seemingly supporting more of his weight than the other. The stage lights weren’t strong enough to cast such strange and contrasting shadows upon him, which meant the yellow and purple tones she spotted under his eyes and peeking out from his shirt were part of his skin. Bruises.[break][break]

Had he gotten in a fight? Another one, she supposed – just how often did he have violent encounters like the one she had stumbled across? What was he doing there? Had he followed her? Was he taunting her with his presence? Making sure she didn’t forget her promise to keep quiet?[break][break]

Dread kept her pinned in place and hanging on every word he said. She sat stock still, frozen as she had been when she first laid eyes upon him, but rather than a message directly to her he spoke to the room… about his mother. About the song she had taught him. And he told them she had died recently.[break][break]

Her breath caught again. Her heart dropped, joining her stomach in the abyss.[break][break]

And he sang.[break][break]

Her mind was blank for a long moment. Simply listening as she had done to a dozen other performers that night. Slowly, bit by bit, her brain began to string together coherent thoughts again, and the first thing she decided was that he hadn’t followed her. He didn’t know she was there at all.[break][break]

Even so, every inch of her could feel his presence in the room. Every fibre of her nerves knew what he could do to her. To her friends. She couldn’t let him see her. Couldn’t let him see Maheep or Paul with her either; endangering them like that was out of the question. He could undo everything in a moment if he wanted to. And yet–[break][break]

And yet…[break][break]

He was hurt. Really hurt. In ways she couldn’t bear to imagine. She wasn’t so naïve as to think his pain meant he was declawed (hurt people were just as capable as lashing out and being dangerous as healthy people – perhaps even more so) but… how did he get injured? How did his mom die? Were the two of them in some sort of accident? Was it connected to the men he had murdered? Did he have someone to talk to?[break][break]

His brother was dead. Evening knew that much. What if his mother was all he had left?[break][break]

Did he have someone to talk to?[break][break]

For at least one moment during the song, he looked close to tears.[break][break]

“Evie?” She blinked, turning her owlish eyes to Maheep. Her friend had angled herself back towards her, Paul looking over her shoulder with a shy yet friendly lift to his lips “You getting this Uber with us?” [break][break]

“Oh, no, I’m –” The song finished. The man gave his thanks and stepped down from the stage, heading towards a table on the opposite side of the room. “Michelle’s picking me up. You go ahead.” It was a lie, and it shocked her. Evening didn’t lie to her friends. Telling it made her insides flip and yet she had done it so seamlessly and the two of them believed it. Maheep flung her arms around her and gave a squeeze which Evening automatically returned in kind.[break][break]

“Text me when you get home, okay?” she breathed into her ear, and when she pulled back enough to see her face again, Eve nodded at her and smiled the same way she always did. [break][break]

“You too.”[break][break]

They exchanged their goodnights and Eve watched them leave, waiting until she was certain they had truly left, and then waiting a little longer because she was indecisive and didn’t know what to do.[break][break]

She stood. She moved. The phrase ‘butterflies in the stomach’ was appropriate for first dates. It was not appropriate to describe how it felt to approach someone she knew was a murderer. A murderer who knew she knew and had threatened her life for it. No. No butterflies. What she felt was far more visceral. She didn’t know if she was up to it – whatever ‘it’ was.[break][break]

She did her best to steady herself, and before she could think, before she could change her mind and dash for the exit, Evening found the courage to swoop in. Albeit ‘swooping in’ meant ‘trailing over to his table like a lost child, feeling somewhat light-headed’. She decided if she sensed any anger or thoughts of vengeance she would leave immediately… Or perhaps beg for his forgiveness while they were in a public place and he couldn't hurt her without drawing attention. Maybe she’d run and beg at the same time.[break][break]

She stopped a safe distance away (and part of her laughed at herself: no distance was safe, he’d been sure to emphasise that when he warned her against telling anyone, against running – nothing about him was safe) behind the chair was positioned to the side of the table, diagonal to him rather than directly opposite or next to him. She didn’t sit. Didn’t offer any normal greeting. How could she expect herself to do that after their last encounter?[break][break]

“I imagine words must feel pretty meaningless right now,” she began, and was surprised by how normal she sounded. Soft and sympathetic, yes, but there was no shake to her voice. Not yet. She imagined that would come later when she was pleading for her life between apologies for approaching him. “But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about your mom.” [break][break]

“If you want to talk about her–” she hesitated, feeling very much like she was treading where she shouldn’t, reaching into a wild animal’s open maw and expecting it not to snap around her arm. She swallowed and dropped her gaze to the table. “Or if you would prefer to be left alone, just say the word.”
[break][break]

[attr="class","EvePostTag"]Tag: Dane Wayland

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[Dane Wayland]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark-o"]

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark"]

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark-title"]ARE YOU READY FOR MY SOUL

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark-subtitle"]what if i'm broken from the start and what if i never heal?

Dane closed his eyes and smoothed a thumb and forefinger across his brow and across his eyelids. He didn't call for another glass of wine. And, perhaps because of his performance, the waiting staff didn't sift by to offer. It was time to consider what to do now. Would he just have to go home? Pick across his still-sticky floors, littered with the shattered glass and spilled drink he hadn't yet found the will to clean? Waste hours and hours trying to find sleep on his couch — atop the splinters of the chair he'd broken there — and then his bed? Maybe he could find an unlocked car along the way. Maybe that would be enough. [break][break]

A soft voice, close to him, made him pull the hand slowly down his face and lift his head. When he turned toward it and blinked open his eyes, for a moment, he was simply stunned. His eyelids fluttered in disbelief and his lips parted. Standing beyond his reach, behind a chair and looking as slight and fragile as she had when he'd first glimpsed her in the warehouse, was Evening.[break][break]

His immediate thought was that she must be there to gloat. Safer now, surrounded by dozens of eyes, she stood before him simply to gaze upon him and his hurts. To look at him, grieving what had been stolen from him, and to nod slowly as she drank it all in. To think to herself, perhaps even let him know — 'you deserve this, you who takes from others'.[break][break]

But as quickly as the thought occurred to him, he knew that wasn't the case. Nearly felt guilty for considering it. Not Evening. She apologized about his mother, her voice sympathetic and sincere, and he just couldn't fathom it. She didn't look or sound afraid. At least not when compared to how terrified he remembered her to be. But how could she not be? Why would she put herself before him? How could she have the capacity at all to feel sorry for him? The courage to act on such awfully, awfully misplaced compassion? [break][break]

She swallowed and dropped her gaze. Dane ripped his own gaze away, too, wishing he had done so a moment sooner; just so she hadn't felt the need to first. So he could pretend he hadn't made her feel the need to. That he wasn't responsible for her hesitance. Hadn't been so proud to be responsible for it when they'd met before.[break][break]

She offered to leave, suggesting he might rather be left alone.[break][break]

"No," he said, a little too quickly. A little too reflexively. It was breathless and gritty and — perhaps because it was her — he was a little too conscious of how it might have sounded, dripped from his lips. Like a demanding growl rather than the reluctant, desperate plea that it was. He curled his fingers into his palm and tipped his face further away. "No, uh..." he trailed, eyes sifting about the tabletop searchingly as he wet his lips, unsure how to follow up. How he was supposed to ask her to stay, to please stay.[break][break]

He was a creature of need. He needed alcohol. He needed sex. He needed a fight. Rarely in his life did he demand anything more. But those were all needs that never required articulating. This — the swimming ache, heavy behind his eyes and lodged in his chest — it was sicker. Weaker. He knew how to seek those other, necessary things. Where to find them and what he'd have to pay for them. But there was no currency he knew of for this. He was empty-handed. He had nothing he could offer in exchange for the relief of it. [break][break]

And Evening, she would have no reason to want to stay for him. On the contrary, she had every reason to look the other way, or better yet, to look upon him for only a moment, be justly satisfied that he was pained, and then turn aside. She knew what he was. He'd indulged in his showing her. Had taken rapture in seeing her tears and stoking her fear. [break][break]

"I don't know... what to say about her," he said finally, giving up on whatever he'd been searching for before and deciding he could really only focus on what else she'd offered. But what did one say, when asked to talk about someone? How was he expected to surmise the enormous existence of his mother into a couple of choice words or anecdotes? No matter what he said, no matter how long he talked, it would all be so incredibly insufficient. Words couldn't make a stranger know her. They'd never see her the way he had. Never feel her presence, her warmth, or how immeasurable and untouchable her love had been. They'd never really know how much of him had belonged to her. [break][break]

He tipped his face in Evening's direction and lifted his gaze. His attention skipped immediately beyond her though, decidedly not searching to meet her eyes. Whether it was to make her more comfortable or him, he couldn't be sure. He shrugged a single shoulder and tried a failing smile. "She was my mom." [break][break]

He felt tears threaten behind his eyes once more and sniffed, smile tugging wider with a bit of self-loathing as he arched a brow and wiped at his face. As if needing to counteract the feel of it all — the sick, quiet vulnerability of himself — he forced a vacant chuckle into his palm. Acknowledged the pressure behind his face and loaded below his eyes. And decided he might as well remind her what he was.[break][break]

"Before you ask, and... before you hear me want to lie to you... I look like this because I avenged her." His lip tucked with the admittance and he dropped his arms to to the table and looked at her square, face slack with the honesty and prepared for her judgment. But what better way was there, to show that he had loved her, than to bloody his hands and bleed for her? To take from those that had taken from her? To put his life on the line, not caring if he died, because it would have been in her name. He had been doing it his whole life. Never once for his mother — she was the only person he loved who never asked those things from him — but there'd been others. [break][break]

That was the only currency he had.

are you steady?[break]are you alarmed that i'm incomplete?

Tag: Evening Cadieux[break]
Give me a nudge for any changes! Or if you need more!

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[Evening Cadieux]

[nospaces]

[break][break][break][break][break]

[attr="class","Evepostname"]evening cadieux

[break]

[attr="class","Evepostlyric"]Sitting in the silence[break]I gave my best; I tried

[attr="class","Evepostingbox"]
There had been a moment – just a brief, half-hopeful moment – where she thought she’d been mistaken. Confused a grieving stranger with the man from the warehouse, maybe because her glass of wine or the events of that day had affected her more than she’d anticipated. But when he lifted his gaze to meet hers she saw there was recognition in them, swirled into his shock, before she lost her nerve and had to look away.[break][break]

Despite the surrounding gentle chatter and soft music, his thought that she might be there to gloat reached her mind. She almost rushed to assure him that she wasn’t, terrified that he’d double down on that supposition and grow defensive. Angry. Violent. But he dismissed it himself. Decided it wasn’t the type of thing she’d do, for which she was grateful, but she still offered to leave.[break][break]

The suggestion was shot down almost immediately. Her wide eyes flicked back up to meet his, darting askance just as quickly when he tore his own away. Although he couldn’t quite say it, he wanted her to stay. And he thought he needed to trade something to make her do so. Offer her some sort of compensation like he would for other wants.[break][break]

To believe that nothing could be given freely… It made her sad. Made her wonder, not for the first time, what kind of life he lived. Had she been braver, she might have told him that some things didn’t need to be traded for. Had that failed, she might have suggested that letting her live was payment enough. Let that be the trade he needed to feel comfortable. But he hadn’t spoken of bargains aloud and she wasn’t sure if reminding him about her powers would help the situation. Perhaps he would find it invasive, as many had before him.[break][break]

When asked to describe lost loved ones, some people started and couldn’t stop, stumbling over themselves trying to release every last piece of information into the universe. She’d heard it could be cathartic. But as someone who had not known grief like that, she could not say whether it was true. Regardless, the man couldn’t decide what to say about his mother. Simply summarising that she was his mom, which in itself was a weighted statement.[break][break]

In some ways, Eve supposed her asking him such a thing was similar to when he had asked her what she loved about life – about why she wanted to keep living. Describing it had felt so inadequate, so much like she was failing everything she was living for, but unlike her he’d recognised that before he’d started, so he didn’t try.[break][break]

He wiped at his face. She bit her lip. Should she offer a tissue? She would, normally. But he wasn’t like the other people she knew. He might find it patronising. Might lash out.[break][break]

He spoke again. Told her why he was so beaten and bruised.[break][break]

Avenged. The word echoed quietly in her mind. He’d killed someone. Again. His retaliation wouldn’t have stopped at exchanging blows with the perpetrator; his mother was dead, there would be no half-measures.[break][break]

Part of her wanted to ask if they deserved it. A gut compulsion with an unknown origin. It might have been an accident – a car crash, like she’d originally guessed, in which his mother had been killed but the other driver had survived until the man sat in front of her got ‘justice’. Or, it could have been on purpose: a murder, either random or calculated, that he didn’t trust the authorities enough to let them handle.[break][break]

But did anyone deserve death, really? For life and all it had to offer to be stolen from them? There were prisons. Rehabilitation centres. Punishments that were not so final. Even the most terrible of people could do some good for the world by becoming informants, offering closure to the families they’d affected, building things while incarcerated…[break][break]

And if someone had murdered his mother on purpose, could it be that they had done so to avenge one of their own family? Had he hurt them first and they struck back? It would not have been right of them to do so, they would not have been justified, but perhaps she could understand. Fear and grief could make people do terrible things.[break][break]

Fear and grief… The man hadn’t looked capable of either, back in the warehouse. But here he was, grieving. And had there been a sliver of it when he spoke of his brother? And when he had said he didn’t always have a choice in who he let go, was it fear that kept him from demanding one?[break][break]

There was only one way she could possibly find out.[break][break]

She slowly pulled out the chair in front of her, just enough that she could step around and slip into it, then folded her hands in her lap. She tried to smooth her expression, make it calm and clear of judgement as she would when greeting customers, but was sure it retained a certain grimness – a worry – hinted at by the draw of her brows and the way her eyes were lowered to the table.[break][break]

“And now you’ve… done that…” She licked her lips. “Is it over?” She raised her gaze back up to his for a moment. “Can you… stop?” Will you stop? Stop hurting others. Stop killing. It was likely a naïve question. One that she half-regretted asking. Yet there was a foolish part of her hoping that, somehow, the death of his mother had been a breaking point. That if he were being controlled by someone, they were the one(s) that he’d gotten revenge against. That he was now free to do as he wished and perhaps learn to walk away from the violence.[break][break]

---

OOC: aware that this is a lot of internal monologue and not a lot of action, so let me know if you’d like more to work with >.<

[break][break]

[attr="class","EvePostTag"]Tag: Dane Wayland

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[Dane Wayland]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark-o"]

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark"]

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark-title"]ARE YOU READY FOR MY SOUL

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark-subtitle"]what if i'm broken from the start and what if i never heal?

Dane watched her, determined to be steady and unflinching, as he admitted what he'd done. But when Evening didn't immediately react, only cleared her face and pulled out a chair to seat herself, he closed his eyes in a rapid, fluttery blink that quickly opened again to continue watching her, almost disbelieving. Her gaze was fixed on the tabletop, her brow pinched just barely in the center, and he couldn't say with any certainty what she might be feeling. Completely unable to guess why she would stay. [break][break]

Did she not hate him? Had she ever hated anyone? Wasn't she afraid? How could anything be stronger than that? Than fear and hate? He wished, for a moment, that he could read her mind as she could his. And he made a conscious effort to think this at her as he then immediately supposed that he wouldn't be able to fathom a single thing he heard. [break][break]

His gaze flickered away and his fingers tightened in the clasps of his fists as he realized he should probably thank her. But his lips felt dry and, after a couple of seconds, he felt the moment where he might have — should have — was passed.[break][break]

It wasn't as if he'd never said thank you before. Or that no one had ever been there for him when he asked. But (like before, on the stage, when the woman stepped up to accompany him on the piano) this... was different. He recognized the enormity of his need — could feel the critical wretchedness of it like a sick, slow and shallow-breathed beast in his chest — and knew it was a desperation far unlike any he was accustomed to wrestling, let alone making known. Especially to someone like her, whom he should, could, and did expect nothing from but reproach.[break][break]

It wasn't like he didn't have anywhere else to go, either. As vacant and husked as his mother's absence made him feel, he still knew (in some distant way) that he wasn't alone. He could reach out to Gemma or Grace. All it would take would be to answer the texts and calls he'd been adamantly ignoring. They'd take him in, he knew they would. Likely after they gave him a good reprimand for keeping away for so long and making them worry, they'd offer their homes, their couches, and probably even wait up with him until he fell asleep. But... though he felt there were more than a couple of reasons he just couldn't... it was difficult to pin down a specific one and examine it. [break][break]

Perhaps he just didn't want to bare that enormous, vile need to either of them. Didn't want to make them responsible for responding to it. It was a lot to put at their feet and in their hands. They'd known each other for so long and had been there for one another when things were difficult, but their specific brand of support and concern had always been volatile at best. Desperate and unpracticed at worst. Distraction, deflection, and jokes. Comforting words always dressed in a bit of tough-love, as if any one of them just couldn't bear to say something hesitantly vulnerable without immediately following it up with a curse or a punch to the shoulder.[break][break]

It suited them well enough. It was familiar. And most of the time, it was enough. [break][break]

But Dane feared that their attempts at consoling him, this time, would be inadequate. That their dynamic — their typical way of dealing with one another — wouldn't be flexible enough to accommodate that wounded animal in his chest. If they couldn't bear it... if they handled it wrong — and how could he expect them to handle it right, when he didn't know what right was, himself? — then he would have to acknowledge, would have to truly realize, that there was no one else who could. No one else he could even ask to make an attempt.[break][break]

It wouldn't be their fault. As easy as it would be for him to be angry with them... as characteristic as it would be for him to blame them for not knowing how to take care of him... he wouldn't be able to. Or, it was more likely that he could and would — snap at them to leave him alone, shove them away, threaten and snarl when they reached for him and it didn't feel like enough — but he wouldn't mean it. It would only be himself that he could point to and blame for not knowing how to be soothed. [break][break]

And, at the same time, Dane also feared that they would be just what he needed. Perhaps they would do a very good job at handling him. Maybe they'd grown in those places where he hadn't. Maybe they could look upon him, more pathetic and disgustingly low than he'd ever been in his life, and know what to do about it. If that was the case... if they picked up the pieces of him and kept him together... then what would stop him from investing those parts of him — those parts of him that'd belonged to his mother, that she'd homed his whole life and kept safe and watched over — in them? [break][break]

Then he'd be like a stray dog, limping home to them every time he was hungry and beaten, seeking the warmth and comfort it'd once been shown. And that was such a burden, wasn't it? One he didn't feel like forcing on them. It had been effortless for his mother. She had been his mother. And she had loved him. Understood him. Knew him for who he'd been and not who he was. No matter what he did, what he carried around with him, and how well or poorly he bore it, she had always seen him as her son first and foremost. Nothing could tarnish him in her eyes. She hadn't even needed to try. Just being in her company, being seen by her, had been enough. But he couldn't expect that of anyone else. He hadn't even deserved it of his mother.[break][break]

Evening spoke but Dane didn't look back to her. Even without seeing the poke of her tongue over her lips, he could hear the hesitance in her voice as she asked if it was over and whether or not he could stop. He swallowed, bruised eyes sifting about the room while his leg began a restless bounce beneath the table.[break][break]

Can you stop? He mulled that over. Did she mean to say if he was allowed to? He'd admitted to her... in some roundabout way... that he wasn't always acting on his own whim. Back in the warehouse, when he was prepared to slit her throat and coo his appreciation over the spill of blood down her fair skin. Not because his father had told him to but because he'd simply been so enamored by her fear of him. Intoxicated and smitten with the emotion in her eyes when she looked at him through her tears. Because even though all she'd been was afraid, the terror that swam in her eyes had been for him and he'd wanted to drown in that. [break][break]

His eyelids fluttered again and he felt cold. The image of his mother's neck, cut clean and wide, flashed behind his eyes and he wondered briefly, which of the men he'd killed had been the one to draw the knife across her throat. Had they taken such disgusting joy in it? Had they watched her eyes widen, watched her choke, and felt themselves slack with the rapture of it? He wanted to curl at the thought. Wanted to seethe with loathing. Wanted to kill them over again. But the want to grow hot, to be angry, wasn't warm enough to cut through the cold, because —[break][break]

... how was he any different than them?[break][break]

It occurred to him that, if he were to answer honestly, perhaps Evening would seize the opportunity to try and stop him here and now. He was in bad shape and surrounded by dozens of people. All it would take was for her to stand. To shout. To draw attention to him, who he was, and all that he'd done and that she'd witnessed. Would the people around them react well enough and quick enough to get him pinned? Was he strong and able enough, currently, to bolt and fight free? Maybe she was phishing for some sort of admission. Some sort of confirmation that would steel her for what she had to do. Maybe she was giving him a chance to tell her that he was done and her intervention wasn't needed. But then, why would he deserve such a chance? Just what she'd witnessed alone — and wasn't it such a tiny, tiny sliver that she'd seen; the least of his atrocities, more tame than the majority of things he'd done all his life — should have made him irredeemable.[break][break]

When Dane lifted his eyes finally, he looked at her simply. Tired eyes weary and gaze blank. He shook his head. "No," he answered honestly, voice certain though it was hardly above a whisper. As soon as the single word left his lips, he felt the desire to look away from her again. It wasn't quite shame, he told himself, but it was something close to it — as if he didn't want to see what might filter across her face at the admittance. Didn't want to watch as something harder and accepting settled upon her features. He half-expected her to wordlessly stand and walk away. To retract her presence like fingers curling back into a palm that'd been reaching for him but paused. Or to stand, take a steadying breath, and raise her voice to the people around them and condemn him.[break][break]

He forced his gaze to remain on her face, though it did flicker from the steady hold at her eyes to focus instead (with no real seeing) at the sharp slope of a cheekbone. Not looking away was a victory — he could convince himself that he was willing to withstand whatever emotion his response elicited; he didn't care if she was disappointed or disgusted — but unable to look in her eyes was a tiny, quiet acknowledgment that maybe he didn't want to see it. He wet his lips. "It's not so simple as being able to quit," he offered further, still truthful, but then decided — fingers feeling numb as they twitched under his palms — to be even more honest. "And... maybe I wouldn't stop even if given the chance."[break][break]

His brow crinkled and his lips parted around a quick breath. "Why are you doing this, Evening? Why... do this to yourself?"

are you steady?[break]are you alarmed that i'm incomplete?

Tag: Evening Cadieux[break]
Give me a nudge for any changes! This is also hugely internal, so pls let me know if you need more to work with. ;v;

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[Evening Cadieux]

[nospaces]

[break][break][break][break][break]

[attr="class","Evepostname"]evening cadieux

[break]

[attr="class","Evepostlyric"]sitting in the silence,[break]
I gave my best; I tried

[attr="class","Evepostingbox"]


He continued to wonder what she was doing there and what she was thinking, and even then supposed he wouldn’t understand her. She didn’t acknowledge those thoughts. Nor did she comment on his supposition that he should thank her, or his inability to do so out loud. It was the (literal) thought that counted. She knew he was grateful.[break][break]

She also knew that it didn’t need to be her who sat with him. While initially motivated to approach him by the suspicion that he didn’t have anyone to reach out to, she learned that was untrue. Two friends in particular came to his mind. But he was reluctant to reach out to them and Evening didn’t try to encourage him. Not yet. Not when doing so could make it seem like she was desperately pushing him away from her, trying to get him taken off her hands as if he were a burden. Nor when his own unease could make it harder to accept his friends’ comfort. Would perhaps make him feel worse, for a time.[break][break]

But he did also think they might be just what he needed, so she resolved to try eventually. Perhaps when she was dismissed – or when she had to dismiss herself to go home. He needed that support network.[break][break]

Upon asking him if the violence could be over, the hesitance in his body language was palpable. Almost nervous, edging more on restlessness, and his leg bounced under the table like he wanted to run. Did it make him uncomfortable? The idea of stopping? Or the fact she was asking the question?[break][break]

He mulled it over, reflecting on how he had enjoyed watching her misery back at the warehouse (she forced herself not to wince at that, at having it confirmed once again), but then he thought of his mother. Of the men who had killed her. Of how they might have relished the same sadistic joy.[break][break]

Evening… hated to think of grief as a lesson, as something that might be needed for the world to become a better place, and yet… she acknowledged that part of her hoped it would be, in his case. She didn’t wish for him to be in that pain, didn't want him to truly suffer for months or years to come, but maybe his mother’s murder would spark some sort of epiphany. One that he seemed so close to already. Maybe he could come to see how his actions affected others (well, she was sure he already knew how his actions affected others, but rather than finding joy in it, maybe he could learn to regret. To hesitate. To release other innocents like he had released her).[break][break]

The crease between her brows deepened briefly as he thought she might take the opportunity to have him taken down. To tell everyone in the lounge about what he had done. And she acknowledged that perhaps that would have been the smart thing to do, the action of a brave young heroine in a novel, taking a stand against a lesser villain. But, she hadn’t considered it when she’d seen him, only thinking she could use the public setting as a shield, a deterrence for him to keep in mind. Not a weapon she could point back at him.[break][break]

Besides, what proof did she have? Even if she did leap up from her seat and shout for everyone to hear, few people could be spurned into action by the word of a stranger alone. They were more likely to stare in confusion, to whisper uncertainly among themselves. And if they did believe her, they would likely be more worried about the friends or family they were there with. She could hardly blame them for that. It wouldn’t be right for her to ask them to endanger themselves. The man would escape before anyone could do anything and then he’d have no reason not to follow through on that promise he’d made her. The threat that he would hurt her and her loved ones if she ever told.[break][break]

Blanketed in grief or not, she doubted he would forgive her.[break][break]

There was no use on dwelling on hypotheticals and she forced herself not to as the man lifted his gaze to tell her no. She did her best not to react. Especially when he was worried (worried? Was that truly the right word for it?) about how she would. He thought she might leave. Thought she might turn her back on him. Even as he told himself he didn’t care how she responded.[break][break]

Whether she wanted to or not, leaving him now would either hurt or anger. She didn’t want to be the cause of either.[break][break]

He admitted he might not stop even if he were given the chance to quit the ‘work’ he was involved with, and then asked why she was doing this to herself.[break][break]

“It’s not about doing this to myself,” she answered gently. And what did he consider ‘this’? Was it trying to offer some small comfort? Putting herself at risk again? Probably both, she supposed. “It’s not about me. What I think about all this… isn’t the most important thing here. It’s what you think.” What he felt. How he might feel a bit less alone if he had someone to sit at his table. How he might realise it was better to reach out to someone, to his friends, than to isolate himself.[break][break]

Further questions about his less conventional life choices failed to entice her for the time being, so she decided she would try to speak to him as though he were a normal person. She was sure he was one, under the cloaks of violence and revenge. If she could speak to that side of him, maybe she could convince him it was the better one. Convince it to stay. Maybe they could both feel a little better about… ‘this’.[break][break]

“Do you like to come to these sorts of places a lot? Or is this… new?” Something different from what he was used to, giving him more things to notice and keep track of, more information piling into his brain to be a distraction of sorts. Or perhaps he was there simply because his mom would have liked it. Would have liked to see him sing on stage.[break][break]

“You don’t have to answer,” she said after a beat. She watched as someone new approached the spotlight, a young woman who received a few soft calls of encouragement from the table she’d left behind. “We can talk, or we can not talk. I’ll be here until closing time either way.”[break][break]

---

[break]

OOC: Sorry for the lateness and the lameness! trying to get my Eve brain back lmao

[break][break]

[attr="class","EvePostTag"]Tag: Dane Wayland

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[Dane Wayland]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark-o"]

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark"]

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark-title"]ARE YOU READY FOR MY SOUL

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark-subtitle"]what if i'm broken from the start and what if i never heal?

"It's not about me."[break][break]

Dane's eyes pressed slowly closed and a breath slipped softly from his nose; not quite dedicated enough to sound a derisive huff (though that had been the intention). He felt himself, for a fleeting moment, want to slide back into the way he'd thought of her at the warehouse. He wanted to scoff and belittle her for being so selfless, for not thinking of her own well-being, and for being such a foolish little martyr. To shake his head and remark, with a contemptuous smack, that "of course it wasn't". [break][break]

But he was too weary for it. The spark of disdain flickered to nothing, extinguished as quickly as it had kindled, and he lacked the energy to stoke it back to life. The absence of it left a small pit of cold within him; a hollow, aching vacancy he was almost unaccustomed to filling with anything else. [break][break]

The rest of her answer — that it was what he thought that was important — made him angle his face away, blinking slow while he dropped his gaze to the tabletop and twitched his fingers into his palm. He tried to puzzle out what that meant as the idea echoed in that empty space within him, unable to sink or find purchase as it rattled around. She hadn't framed it as a question and he was glad for it, because he wasn't certain what any sort of answer might be.[break][break]

It had been easy to know what he'd thought, what he'd felt, in the couple of days... weeks... following his mother's death. Easy to react to another person in his presence. He hadn't wanted anyone in his presence. He'd snapped, deflected, ignored, and done anything he could to make them leave when none of that worked. He'd been full of seething rage, sometimes so intense it was meticulously calm. Hinged entirely on vengeance. It had kept him grounded and blind with purpose. It had left little room for anything else. But now that it was spent and exhausted, and he himself was only exhausted, he didn't know... what to do with what was left. How to spend and exhaust the rest of everything else. [break][break]

He didn't know what he thought of her being there or even how he hoped someone's company might alleviate him. He only knew — almost like when he'd ordered white wine instead of red — that nothing he usually sought or wanted, or expected to work, would.[break][break]

Evening asked him if he visited the lounge often and Dane almost considered it until, a moment later, she added that he didn't have to answer. That she didn't expect conversation and that she'd stay either way. Her attention sifted to the stage as a woman stepped onto it. He swallowed, lips parting and then pressing back together. Brow pinching just barely, he decided that maybe silence was the correct route and lifted his own eyes to the new performer as she fiddled with the mic and readied herself. He only watched her for a second, though, before his gaze flit sidelong. He watched Evening without feeling, gaze decidedly still now, for a long moment, and when the music finally began, he leaned forward to settle his elbows upon the tabletop — barely flinching at the pained protest of his wrecked shoulder.[break][break]

He supposed... he just wanted sleep. Real sleep. And maybe, with Evening at his table, he would be given leave to find it — maybe for just a moment. No one would feel the need to wake him or ask if he was all right, if he wasn't alone. He wouldn't have to look like he wasn't trying to sleep.[break][break]

Sniffing, Dane sunk further forward. One arm he laid across the table, hand clasped at the crook of the other. He lowered his face into the cradle created and let the fingers of his bent arm sift through his hair. If Evening's own arms and hands had been folded on the table rather than held carefully in her lap, he might have cautiously inched a hand through the space between them instead. Kept his fingers curled into his palm, close enough only to ground a knuckle or two against the solid warmth of her outer arm. But she was out of reach. [break][break]

The thought occurred to him that he could be more direct. He could lean across, reach out, and coax a hand from her lap. But then, he was aware of the many times he'd done so before; clasping her fingers in his over and over in a deliberate attempt to discomfort and mock. He could ask it of her. But anything he asked, he figured still ran the risk of sounding a demand. And despite the relative safety of where they were (far different than where they'd been) and the fact that she seemed at ease, he couldn't imagine she would find the ask anything less than a horrible reminder of what had transpired before. [break][break]

Though perhaps... being who she was... she'd still offer the small condolence anyway (so willing, it seemed, to sacrifice her own comfort for others). [break][break]

He didn't want to demand anything of her. Didn't want to invite her refusal. Even more than that, he didn't want to stomach the possibility that she might allow it. Somehow — in a way he wasn't quite able to define but still knew — that would be worse.[break][break]

Pressing the fingers of one hand more bracingly into their clasp at his elbow and curling those of the other tightly in his hair, Dane contented himself by shifting his foot slowly across the ground. Until the toe of his shoe knocked gingerly against the side of a heel. It wasn't a lot, but it was something. And at the feel of it, subtle as it was, he swallowed and let the press of his eyelids infinitesimally loosen. He turned to tuck his face against his bicep and settled more easily, soothed by the medicinal scent of ointment and sterile bandages pleated beneath the detergent of his clothes.[break][break]

With a sort of ease he had been chasing for weeks, his breathing slipped into something immediately more ragged, almost labored with a desperate reach for relief. He could feel wetness threaten at the seam of his pressed eyelids while the performer's soft, baritone voice shepherded him closer to oblivion. He couldn't even note that her singing was flat. Couldn't be anything more than grateful for it. [break][break]

"Just until closing then," Dane breathed, muffling the words into his arm as he pressed his wet eyes into his jacket. "Thank you."

are you steady?[break]are you alarmed that i'm incomplete?

Tag: Evening Cadieux[break]
Give me a nudge for any changes~

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[Evening Cadieux]

[nospaces]

[break][break][break][break][break]

[attr="class","Evepostname"]evening cadieux

[break]

[attr="class","Evepostlyric"]Sitting in the silence[break]
I gave my best; I tried

[attr="class","Evepostingbox"]


In the corner of her eye, she could see him watching her while she watched the newest performer. He was quiet, opting not to answer her question, and as promised she did not press him. She supposed she could ask him all sorts of things if she wanted. Could pluck answers from his reactive mind even if he did not give voice to them. But she wondered… if she actually wanted to know. Not knowing gave her a certain kind of safety. A hope, maybe. That he wasn’t so bad. Or that he could be better, if given the right motivation to try.[break][break]

And she truly did want to give him some peace, as little as her offering to stay with him might be. If he didn’t want to talk, then… they wouldn’t. He needed time to work out his feelings. To grieve and, once he was ready, decide what he wanted to do next. She could be there for him in that small way and potentially attempt to steer him towards what she felt would be good for them both, but in the end he was his own person. Controlling people was not her power. Nor would she want it to be.[break][break]

The music started and he shifted, sinking forward to lay his head on the table. She kept her gaze on the performer. The song helped her tune out his thoughts, allowing him as much privacy as someone with her gift could give –[break][break]

Something knocked against her shoe.[break][break]

Instinctively she knew it was his foot. An apology sprung to the tip of her tongue and usually she would have moved her own foot out of the way, presuming the nudge to be an accident. But, as in their first encounter, a flash of panic made her freeze up instead. And when he did not shift again to move his away from hers, she realised the contact was intentional.[break][break]

She dared to glance across at him once more with the expectation of meeting his eyes. The expectation of a subdued request or perhaps a more direct order or statement. But his face was already turned away from her, tucked against his arm and hidden from her questioning (prying) gaze. He whispered a thanks. She did not respond.[break][break]

His fingers were curled in his hair and she bit her lip as she considered reaching across and taking over, sifting her own fingers through his locks in a hopefully soothing, debatably maternal gesture rather than just sitting there. Waiting for something. Would that help him? Would he feel comforted? Or would that make him feel worse – as he’d know it wasn’t his mother’s hand. As he’d know his mother would never calm him in such a way again.[break][break]

If it had been one of her friends who was grieving, Eve would have pulled them into her arms without question. Wouldn’t even think twice about holding them unless they’d expressed an aversion to touch (be it verbally or mentally). But she wasn’t quite there yet with him – with this stranger who’d threatened her life not so long ago.[break][break]

Yet. She caught the thought. She wasn’t quite there yet with him. Did that mean she’d already decided she could be at some point? She didn’t even know his name. Though perhaps it was safer that way. For the both of them.[break][break]

One song bled into another, the performer on stage changed multiple times, and his silent mind indicated he'd fallen asleep. At some point she moved his empty wine glass away from him in case he woke abruptly or moved and accidentally knocked it over, and she noted there weren’t any plates or bowls on the table. It wasn’t exactly the time or place that she’d usually expect someone to order a full meal, but still, was he eating enough? As intimidating as he was, he was objectively on the skinnier side. That meant nothing, though; she herself ate a good deal and retained a lanky figure no matter what she did.[break][break]

Evening couldn’t be sure whether one hour had passed or if it had been more. She hadn’t checked the time when Maheep left and she didn’t know when exactly the lounge closed for the night. What she did know was that other patrons began to file out and eventually the room’s lights brightened, the staff ushering their remaining customers out while they collected glassware and cleaned up tables.[break][break]

She took a deep breath and returned her attention to the sleeping stranger.[break][break]

Despite all the time she’d had to think about it, she didn’t know what would happen next. It occurred to her then that he might not let her go a second time. That, as some people do, he might grow angry at her because he thought he’d shown weakness, or that she’d seen too much of him in a more literal way; that she might be able to give a better description if she were to tell the police or anyone else who might help her.[break][break]

Yet she didn’t have the heart to abandon him. To slip out of the room before he could wake and let him wonder if she was ever there at all. She wanted to make sure he got home okay. Wanted his own safety and peace of mind at the end of their meeting as much as her own.[break][break]

She reached for him, only resting three fingertips on his forearm. “Hey,” she murmured. Gently, yet hopefully loud enough to rouse him if he wasn’t already stirring. She pressed down lightly before withdrawing her hand. “It’s home time.” Some of her friends liked to playfully complain when she said that. It’s 'closing time,' they’d whine, not 'home time,' like the end of a school day.[break][break]

She blinked at him slowly, prepared to hear his thoughts now there was no more music to muffle them. “Do you want to go?” Maybe that was the wrong way to phrase it. They would have to go soon. They couldn’t stay in that establishment when it was closed. But maybe what she was really asking was if he wanted to leave her. If he felt he’d had his fill of… whatever respite, however brief, he might have found in her presence.

[break][break]

[attr="class","EvePostTag"]Tag: Dane Wayland

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[Dane Wayland]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark-o"]

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark"]

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark-title"]ARE YOU READY FOR MY SOUL

[attr="class","post-lizardstripe-dark-subtitle"]what if i'm broken from the start and what if i never heal?

Most of the time, Dane's sleep was fitful. That was nothing new. But lately, it'd been worse. The brief, scattered snippets he'd managed to catch in the previous couple of weeks had been tormented with memory. Happy and warm ones from childhood, where his mother smiled and laughed (that barking laugh he'd imitated until it was his own). The image of her, laid so wrong on their front lawn. His grisly revenge on the men who'd placed her there. And sometimes, the memories were skewed a bit — her face twisted with a shame or a sadness as he reached for her; a way she'd never looked at him when she'd been living, but surely must have felt and hidden. [break][break]

But now... whether it was the presence of people around him, Evening's touch (as minimal as it was), or just the fact that he'd gone so long without it... his brief respite was, thankfully, dreamless. [break][break]

But still, it felt only like a blink when her voice brought him out of it. The sleep hadn't been especially deep — he could probably make a close guess at how many songs had played and how much time had passed — but still, the retreat from it was agonizing. Not long enough. Never long enough. He could have shuddered. He turned his head to press a pained grimace more privately into his arm. [break][break]

Then he lifted his head and straightened with a centering sniff. No use crying about it. What else to do but buck up? Normally, he'd leap from wherever he was attempting to pass out and go out — drink himself into an unavoidable slumber or exhaust himself with another body. Until his own body couldn't go on any longer and simply shut down or he could convince whoever he'd slept with that he'd be gone in the morning and they let him find a more peaceful, more forgiving, sleep in their bed. [break][break]

But he'd proven tonight that neither of his usual, desperate options were quite feasible.[break][break]

Evening spoke, claiming it was "home time".[break][break]

If it'd been any other place and time, if he'd been in any other state and had the proper energy, Dane might have snorted. Where exactly was "home" for him now? [break][break]

The place he'd ransacked? No. His apartment had never been home. The house that'd been torched and husked? It was probably crawling with builders already, dozing everything the rest of the way to the ground. Cleaning up so that Antonio could "rebuild". Dane knew his father well enough to know that he'd make the estate the exact same. In the exact same spot. Just to prove he wouldn't run and couldn't be intimidated or cowed. But no, it'd never be a home again. How could it be, when it would never be filled with all that had made it so? There'd be no traces of his mother or Dino in it. It would never feel lived-in. Not in the way it had been. [break][break]

And he hoped his father would feel that. Would, every single day and night, be crushingly aware of his incapability to fill a space with anything but cold. [break][break]

No, Dane would never go back there. If Antonio summoned him back to Riverside, it would have to be elsewhere. He'd let his tattoo swallow him head to toe, teeth grit tight against the agony and chin tipped with stubborn decision, before he stepped foot on that lawn again. Or walked through that door. It'd make him sick. [break][break]

Dane curled his fingers into his palms, fisting them beneath his folded arms. Then he slowly released them, bending his head in a slow nod. "Yeah."[break][break]

There was no merit in lamenting any of it to her. Even if she had every right not to and he didn't expect it of her, he suspected she'd care. Bleeding heart that she was. And she'd done enough, or at least tried, already. He wouldn't burden her with anymore. Wouldn't force her to shoulder, even just a little bit, some of his grief. Make her saddened on his behalf. How laughable was that? How disgusting was that? No one should be concerned for him. Least of all, her. [break][break]

In any case, he'd figure the rest out. At some point, he was going to have to return to his apartment. He was his father's son, after all, and it was the Wayland thing to do — he'd clean up and go on. One boot in front of the other. Tongue bit between teeth. This was a wound carved far deeper than bone, far deeper than any he'd known (even the cut of losing Dino), but — he had enough scars to know he'd heal. Eventually. It'd be ugly and wrong, and it'd ache in certain weather, but... he'd live. [break][break]

But maybe... he'd put it off for another night. He'd find somewhere else along the way. An unlocked car was still an attractive thought. The most promising, at least. Just enough of someone else to get him by. Or, if he didn't have enough battery to locate one, then sprawled under some stairwell wrapped around his dog would... probably... do. [break][break]

He sucked in a breath and gave a faint shake of his head. "Yeah," he repeated, nodding with a little more decision as he pushed from his seat and stood. He dragged his bruised eyes to Evening and tried to give her a thankful, maybe even reassuring, pull of his lips. But the effort exhausted itself before it could really reach his face and he only blinked at her. His lips parted, and his intention was to thank her, but he paused.[break][break]

"Do you have nightmares about my dog?" He asked. And he wasn't sure exactly where the words came from, even as they left his lips. But slowly, his mind caught up. Here she was trying to give him some sort of peace and comfort, and... how much of hers had he robbed? How long had she spent terrified after their first encounter? Seen his face in shadows? Panicked at the lumbering shape of a stray animal in her periphery?[break][break]

As slowly as it'd taken him to find the reasoning behind the question, it took him just as long to realize how it might sound. Like he was preparing to toy with her some more. Like maybe he wanted to hear she had nightmares of them. (And, before now, he undoubtedly would have.) He shook his head, lips twisting as he pinched shut his eyes and lifted a shaky palm on the air. "I mean, if you do, do you think... you'd like to meet her again? Could that... help you?"

are you steady?[break]are you alarmed that i'm incomplete?

Tag: Evening Cadieux[break]
Give me a nudge for any changes~

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[Evening Cadieux]

[nospaces]

[break][break][break][break][break]

[attr="class","Evepostname"]evening cadieux

[break]

[attr="class","Evepostlyric"]Sitting in the silence[break]
I gave my best; I tried

[attr="class","Evepostingbox"]


The man stirred, slow to raise his head and sit up in his seat (and she tried not to wince at the thought of how much his body must protest the movement – how it must ache from the bruises, the break, and the uncomfortable position), but undoubtedly conscious now. His thoughts, triggered by her suggestion of going home, did nothing to allay her sympathies and left her stomach feeling unsettled, as if she’d eaten something bad.[break][break]

It would never be a home again, without his mother. And his father sounded… like there was much room for him to become a better man. A better parent.[break][break]

How could she help him? The question echoed in Eve's mind the same as it had when she’d first glimpsed those fragments of his life in the warehouse. But the muted response was the same as when she’d been frozen and shaking on that rusty stool, with a dog prowling around the corners of the room: there’s nothing you can do.[break][break]

He stood and she followed suit, her fingers finding the slim strap of her shoulder bag to give them something to do. She didn’t like his ideas of sleeping in a car rather than returning to his apartment. Not at all. Not only because it would be unsafe for him, but because of the stress and danger it might put the unlucky vehicle owner in. And the thought of him sleeping in the street or a quiet stairwell was marginally worse, even if his dog would be there to guard him (and she had no doubt the canine would).[break][break]

She heard his thought to thank her before he said it, but when he parted his lips a question came out instead – one that barely had time to form in his head before he spoke it.[break][break]

She blinked, just as surprised as he seemed to be. Yet she heard his brain catch up afterwards, heard the process and the reasoning behind it, and felt herself soften once more.[break][break]

The questions he added afterwards were less simple, so she decided to deal with them later.[break][break]

“Sometimes,” she admitted quietly. “But your dog, she never…” She never touched her. Never flung her weight against Eve’s body to send her sprawling onto the floor. Never clamped her jaws around her arm, her leg, teeth digging and crushing together until bone broke between them…[break][break]

Noticing most of the lounge’s stragglers had already left, she knew it was time they did the same and slowly began to move towards the exit; not at a pace that suggested she was in a hurry.[break][break]

“I’m more likely to dream of you,” she told him, briefly glancing across and up at the man walking beside her. “Not always specifically you, but I guess the idea of a person who intends harm. A… knife…”[break][break]

A sticky, gentle hand on her chin. Too-soft murmurs coaxing her to look. The glint of something sharp, close to her pale flesh. Her dress, heavy and saturated with red, red, red.[break][break]

Cool nighttime air hit her all at once as they pushed through the doors to the street, effectively distracting her before she was submerged too deeply in remembering. She swallowed, giving a small, slow shake of her head.[break][break]

“More than your dog, more than you, it’s… blood, that I see.” It was ridiculous that she wanted to reassure him of this fact, as if it made anything any better. She could imagine what her sister would think if she knew and were with them, lips curled in a snarl as she bristled at the confession. Why try to absolve him of guilt? Why try to make him feel better about hurting you? Evening continued nonetheless. Honesty always came easiest to her. “The bodies, the wounds. The same wounds on different bodies.” On her friends. On her loved ones. On her family, most of all. “Though in some ways, the dreams of you or your dog are better, because at least then… if they were prophetic…” She averted her gaze, sideways and down to the pavement, as her hands lifted to her elbows, holding herself. “At least it would be me.”[break][break]

The idea that her choices – a moment of recklessness, or rather of simple, naïve curiosity – could bring such great harm to someone else, someone she cared for, was unbearable. Nothing made her colder. Nothing made her stomach want to empty itself so violently.[break][break]

She had two more questions to answer.[break][break]

She turned to face him more directly, a small smile tentatively lifting her lips. “Thank you. For offering to let me meet your dog.” She recognised he was trying. And she truly appreciated the effort. “I don’t think…” She hesitated. Stopped herself. Tried again. “I think, you and I, we have something.” She took a breath. “An understanding.” She supposed that would be the politest way to describe their ‘agreement’. An understanding of what would happen if she didn't uphold her end of the deal; her silence in return for her life. “But I don’t think it would be wise for me to go to your home, for more than one reason.”[break][break]

Her brows twitched together. “Do you live… nearby?” she asked. “Will you be alright getting there? Or –” She caught herself, thinking. In the back of her mind, Sunny shrieked at her not to be an idiot. Yelled that she was the stupidest woman alive for even trying to trust him after what he did – and after he had implied he’d never stop doing. But he looked so wounded. Sounded so heavy with grief. “I don’t live too far from here.” He likely already knew, if he’d kept tabs on her the way he’d promised. She took another deep breath. “You could wait for a cab there. Or borrow the couch until morning.”


[break][break]

[attr="class","EvePostTag"]Tag: Dane Wayland

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