Open: A Kindness to soothe the hurts

[killedwithlove]

Cole is what he is because of what he does and so what he does is try and help.

He doesn't understand electricity, or computers, or what 'genes' are. He can't cook because he doesn't eat and he barely recognises the robots as existing because they lack the thing that makes him realise they're real.

So he lets himself sit, quiet and open and he listens for the hurts he can help. The things that need soothing and the emotional wounds that fester and need lancing and the aches that just need airing to begin healing.

And when he hears it, he follows.

OOC: (Cole is a spirit of Compassion and has an instinctively understanding of what is troubling people and what might help them recover. This can be as simple as listening to someone talk, or as complex as setting up a situation that would allow them to relax and forget about it for a while.

If your muse needs (or wants) some kindness, leave a top level and Cole will come to help.)

Comments

[livingdeadgirl]

It's been a couple weeks. Sometimes, when Ami can find enough busywork to keep her mind occupied, when she's making friends or learning things, she feels like maybe this whole situation isn't so bad. Sure, it's bad, but not the worst it could be. She can handle it. She's doing fine.

But then there are the low times, the doubts and worries and insecurities that gather like moss the longer she holds still. Near misses that remind her how much danger she's in. Nights when she can't sleep because she wants so badly to be back in her own bed, after hugging her mom and dad and telling them goodnight...

It's past midnight. She's sitting just outside the bedroom she's claimed for herself, reading by a dim light in the hall. It's her Japanese textbook - not much use here, but it's something from home.

She thought she'd just open to a random page, but what she gets... She's read it a bunch of times before. It's so trivial - how to say hello and goodbye. Yet...

"Ittekimasu," she murmurs.

It had become a little ritual with her parents, lately. They spoke English around the house, but her dad was still fluent in Japanese, and tickled pink to be able to help her practice. She'd leave for school, call out "ittekimasu," and from somewhere in the house he'd call back "itterasshai."

It translated to a sort of "see you later." I'm leaving, and I will come back.

But there's no guarantee she will, now. It could be years. It could be never. Could she really stand never hearing their voices again? Her parents, her teachers, her friends? They'd never know what happened to her. She could die here, and they'd never know.

She shuts the book and pulls her knees in close. Her eyes water.

"Ittekimasu."

[killedwithlove]

Her hurt is louder enough that it drowns out the wrongness, that Cole approaches and doesn't immediately realise that she's not really there, that there's her and something else that sleeps, or is Tranquil, is wrong.

But the hurt is loud and he approaches, shy and quiet. "His voice calls back, Itterasshai, but I don't know if it's true anymore, will I go home again? You remember what matters, even if the details soften and blur."

[livingdeadgirl]

Hearing a quiet voice, Ami raises her head, blinks a few times and wipes her eyes. She didn't hear him approach, he's just there all of a sudden, as if he was never anywhere else.

She's a little wary - what's he doing out here in the middle of the night? Then again, it's not like she's one to talk. Maybe he just can't sleep, either. He phrased that stuff in a really weird and vaguely unsettling way, but it echoed her own feelings pretty much to the letter.

"I guess," she says, then rubs her eyes again and yawns. "Sorry. I wasn't making too much noise, was I?"

[killedwithlove]

He has the pale, washed out skin and bruised, sunken eyes of an insomniac, or malnutrition. or both. He doesn't look up at her, watching his hands, picking at the threads of the cloth wrapped around his fingers and hands.

"No. Your hurt was loud, clear, but even if you don't remember the specifics, you never forget the things that matter. The way that voice made you feel, the warmth of the love of what that means. Those don't fade."

[livingdeadgirl]

Maybe it's the dim light or the lateness of the hour, but the longer she looks at Cole, the eerier his presence feels. It's as if she's entered a twilight zone where fantasy and reality mingle freely, but which one is he? Both, neither? A wandering spirit visiting in a dream?

She's got to be dreaming, right? How else would a total stranger know what she's thinking, and exactly what to say? How would he "hear" someone else's hurt?

Why would his words be resonating so much?

In her head, they make sense. She may forget her father's voice, but not his love. And he may be right, but she can't shake the feeling there's something more to it.

You never forget the things that matter.

But... she has, she realizes. Suddenly, overwhelmingly, she's certain she's forgotten something. Something that mattered so, so much.

"Wait," she says, getting to her feet. "What do you mean? What did I forget?"

(Aradia's soul stirs in its sleep. Doesn't awaken - not yet. But it could. All it needs is to remember itself...)

[killedwithlove]

"I am a spirit, you're not dreaming. I don't go into the Fade anymore. I can't here and I don't want to. I just listen for the hurts, so I can help."

So that answers that.

"Everyone forgets specifics. Mortals aren't meant to remember everything always." But as he says it, her hurt is burning off into fear and he suddenly sees it.

His eyes go wide. "You're... Tranquil? No. She lives in you, sleeps in you, you're an Abomination." His voice drops and he steps back. His step takes him back three steps, with a flicker of smoke around him. "You're you, but she's there too, she shouldn't be in a mortal! It's not good for either of you, you'll go like Anders, like Vengeance, you need to get out!"

It's not anger. Fear, definitely. Maybe something a touch closer to horror or revulsion. And he backs up further, in another flicker and curl. "Mortal bodies aren't for spirits to live in!"

[livingdeadgirl]

The accusation comes out of nowhere, hitting her like a punch to the gut.

"What...?"

She shrinks back, flinches as he moves faster than he moves. An abomination? No one's ever called her something so cruel before, why would he say that, she hasn't done anything wrong! What is he talking about? Who's "she"?

"I don't understand," she murmurs.

He blinks away again, and it hits her - he's afraid. He's at least as scared of her as she is of him. Scared... and disgusted.

But she hasn't done anything wrong.

She doesn't understand. Nothing he's saying makes sense. She wants to flee, but her legs won't move. Tears run down her cheeks. All she can muster is a quiet, pathetic protest.

"Stop it...! You're scaring me!"

[killedwithlove]

He's definitely frightened.

"No, not you! Her! Her in you, sleeping, Tranquil, too powerful, she'll hurt you if she stays and you'll hurt her and she has to get out!!" Cole cringes back. "I'm sorry, I don't want to scare you, don't want to hurt you, but two people shouldn't be in one body!"

He looks at her, then seems to look past her, deeper, deeper than any gaze should. "She's asleep in you, but if she wakes... she'll hurt you. She will hurt you. She has to go away."

If she woke up, maybe Cole would be able to read her, understand more, but she wasn't and he couldn't.

But something... did echo.

"What did you forget? No. What did she forget?"

[livingdeadgirl]

He doesn't want to scare her? Too late for that. His eyes, reflecting in the dark, seem to pierce right through her, opening her heart and examining its contents, and finding inside it - something monstrous. A slumbering horror that must never awaken.

What has she forgotten?

Ami raises a hand to her heart, her breathing shallow. Her other hand fumbles for the controls on her bedroom door.

"Y... you need to leave," she says shakily. "You go away. Leave me alone."

The door hisses open, and she ducks inside and starts mashing the CLOSE button. Please don't follow please don't hurt her please leave her alone.

[itsnotaonesie]

If there's one thing that Peter's time in Hadriel had taught him, it's that the best way to deal with your emotions is to totally bottle them fuckers up and pretend they don't exist. Make like Elsa, conceal don't feel, etc. So far it's been working out for him, especially when he has something else to focus on. Something to fix or reprogram, someone to talk to or teach. Any excuse not to think about himself he'll jump at, but not everyone keeps the same ridiculous hours that he does, not everything needs fixed or tinkered with, and every now and then he's left with too much time to think.

He can usually find a distraction, which is what has brought him to the library. Not his first choice when it comes to seeking entertainment, but like, books can be distracting. Right?

Maybe if Peter wasn't as exhausted as he is and was able to actually focus on the words he was reading, they'd be distracting. He can't keep his attention on this book to save his life, though. Instead, his mind keeps wandering back home. Back to his Aunt May, his friends, how it's been over a year and he still has no idea if any of them are even alive after what Thanos had done. He misses them so goddamn much, but he'll never have a chance to go home and find out if they'd even survived because he's dead. Super dead. He'd failed to save the universe and he'd died, and his last words to Tony Stark, whose arms he'd literally died in, sum his feelings on the matter up pretty succinctly.

"I'm sorry." Sorry for failing? Sorry for dying? He's sorry for a lot of things.

The distraction book has long since been given up on. It lies open on the floor next to Peter's chair, and he's just sitting there with his face buried in his hands, sobbing his dumb little heart out. The down side of the bottling your emotions up to deal with grief strategy is that when you bottle up too much, it doesn't just overflow. It fucking shatters.

tl;dr Peter's sad in the library :(

[killedwithlove]

"You don't need to be sorry. You did nothing that needs an apology."

Cole's voice is soft and inherently soothing, comforting in that way that someone who understands is. He doesn't come too close in case Peter freaks out, but he's close enough to be heard, to be a quiet presence.

"You did your best. You were a child and it wasn't your responsibility to be perfect, or to handle that. Children shouldn't be forced into adult issues. By others or their own expectations." He shuffles a little closer. "It's okay to miss them and grieve their absence. It's okay to grieve because you died. I died and it was awful and I cried a lot until I came to terms with it."

[itsnotaonesie]

Peter sort of freaks out. It's less a freak out and more just jumping out of his chair because HEY he thought he was alone, but if he had more energy he'd probably be crab walking up one of the walls. But nah, he just stands there for a second before realizing that this weird dude isn't a threat, and awkwardly lowers himself back into his chair while he listens to him. And uh. Then rubs at his eyes a bit because he'd kind of just been crying his little eyeballs out a minute ago, and he doesn't really want some stranger seeing him all upset and shit.

It was a little too late for that, but you know.

"...I-- okay. I know that all that stuff you just said was like, super profound and I should probably like, take it to heart or something? But what the Hell. Did you just read my mind, dude?"

He'll get back to focusing on all the important emotional stuff in a minute, right after his mind is done being blown.

[killedwithlove]

"Sort of."

A lot of people put it that way, that he reads minds, but he doesn't, not exactly. He hears souls. Sees souls. "You have an inside and an outside. Mortals speak outside to outside. I hear what the inside says. So I can understand and then help. That's Compassion."

He crouches down a bit to look at Peter's face. "I hear thoughts and emotions, I can feel memories from people and things."

[itsnotaonesie]

Peter's still pretty weirded out by this whole... thing, but this dude isn't pinging the spider-senses at all. He can't quite manage to relax, but he does lean back in his chair a bit. Awkwardly, since that's how he does everything.

"Huh. Okay, that's... interesting. I mean, it seems a little invasive? But I'm guessing that's not something you can just turn off?"

It's not like Peter can turn his powers off, so maybe that was a stupid question. Still, it's steering the conversation away from his emotional baggage. Or at least he's hoping it is. Avoidance is the best way to deal with it, clearly.

[killedwithlove]

"It's what I am." He perches himself on a stack of books, not looking at Peter anymore, watching his own feet. One toe pokes through a hole in the thin leather of his shoes.

"I'll help you ignore it if you really want, but if you keep ignoring it, it will kill you. Not your body, but it will kill the person you are for someone else." He tilts his head slightly, ear towards Peter.

[itsnotaonesie]

Oh my God HE CAN READ ME LIKE A BOOK is absolutely what Peter's thinking right now. Feeling? Kind of both? He can't tell the difference anymore oh God.

Okay. Okay, this is weird, but Peter's dealt with weirder. Weirder and more threatening. So, this isn't super bad. Invasive, maybe? But maybe he needs some kind of weird, mind-reading therapy session thing right now? This dude seems to think so. So. Fuck it, YOLO, let's roll with this crazy shit.

"So- so I'd... essentially be double dead, cool. Okay, definitely don't want that. I just- y'know, I don't think I know what I really want? I mean, I guess I do, but what I really want is something I can't have, so it... it feels pointless to sit here and- and be all upset over it, you know?"

And hey, that was already a lot more words than he was expecting to sit here and toss at this guy. Progress? This probably counts as progress.

"Like, I have people here to look out for. If I don't have my head in the game like, all the time, something bad could happen. If I get caught up worrying about myself like that, I just... I don't know, it-- I... I just don't know, man."

[killedwithlove]

"You're not dead. You died, but you're not dead. I died, but I'm not dead." If Peter were dead, Cole couldn't do this with him.

"If you were upset about things you could change, that would be pointless, because you could change it and should do that rather than just being upset. But you can't change this, so grieving it makes sense. You've lost so much, over and over, if that isn't worth your grief, what is? Don't those losses deserve mourning? I grieved for Cole's death for a long time. Sometimes it still aches."

He feels it sometimes. The loneliness, the hollow ache deep in his gut, the taste of moss on his tongue.

"Bad things happen. Doesn't matter if you watch or not. Other people make their choices to be cruel, just like you make yours to save them. You can't control the world, or other people, and nothing you do will change that. If you try to make them behave how you want, you become them. You care. You act out of care. That's more than a lot of people ever do. It's not all on you, Peter Parker. Just like it wasn't all on Tony, even if he thought it was."

RDR2 ~*~Spoilers~*~ ahead

[sleepyhollowed]

Haymaking suited him well.

It’s honest, humble work for someone who, had his father managed to see his dream through, was destined for an honest, humble existence. An existence that Kieran had been completely okay with, to be honest, even before he got to experience the chaotic maelstrom that was life as a mostly unwilling outlaw. He could be a farmer. Farmers didn’t hurt anyone. They did the opposite: they took care of folks and made sure everyone was well-fed, or, at the very least, not going without something in their bellies to tide them over to the next day. They weren't forced to shoot folks over money or rob innocent people for all they had.

Anchor was the kind of place that wasn’t built for humble people. With its sweeping hallways, large pillars, and sheer expanse, even someone with as little experience with anything close to resembling technology as Kieran could tell that this was a place for people who dreamed big and aimed for bigger. Nothing wrong with that, he could see the appeal, but it just wasn’t for him and it’s all over his head, anyway. So he’s been focusing on using whatever tools he could scrounge up from his makeshift barn home and using them as best he knew how: cutting grass and making hay for Branwen and a weird, glowing mare that’s been trotting around out somewhere in the fields in the hope that one day she’ll let him put a rope around her.

With each rhythmic thump of fresh grass hitting wood, Kieran can feel his mind drifting. His thoughts start out mundane with questions like ‘What should I have for lunch?’ and ‘I wonder where that mare is today?’

Thump.

‘It’s been a while since I got to do this. Didn’t get much of a chance back home.’

Thump.

‘Wonder if anyone misses me.’

Thump.

‘…Wonder if they came looking after the O’Driscolls picked me up.’

Kieran freezes, his chest constricting and a hand rising to his neck. It's still there, still smooth except for the bristles of coarse, unkempt wires of beard hair. Still, he can feel that knife held against his throat as his head is jerked back. His pleas for mercy both from the men around him and the heavens above ring in his ears as the blade breaks his skin, the breath leaving his body as it slumps to the ground.

That’s his final memory before his arrival in this strange, ornate place, and as it plays on repeat, he can’t help but wonder why he’s wistful over the idea of the Van der Linde gang looking for him when he knows full well that all they’d find is a corpse.

The tools drop from his hands and Kieran starts to pace, his entire being filled with nervous energy and a need to get rid of it somehow. Normally, he'd go out for a ride, but with Branwen in the state he's in, that's not possible. So he walks. He walks and walks around the barn, his shaking gait never evening out and his arms squeezing his torso in a desperate bid to get his breathing under control.

"C'mon, get a hold of yerself..."

[killedwithlove]

Kieran's presence is so familiar that for a moment, Compassion thinks it could lose itself in the resemblances with Cole.

Then, Compassion remembers, and Cole sighs out a soft breath. He doesn't cry, because he ran out of tears when he was with Rhys and swore he would never shed another tear for himself, never pretend that level of humanity again, even to himself.

But if anything would make him cry, he thinks maybe this would be it.

"There's no weakness in grief or fear," Cole says softly, not too close, not so he'll scare him more. "What happened to you, it was monstrous. But they did look for you. And there was vengeance in their hearts when they found you. I know that."

Because no amount of time and space can stop Cole reading these things.

"I was killed. It was different, but I died. I'm Cole."

[sleepyhollowed]

Already in the midst of a nervous outburst, Kieran can't help the startled jump at the sound of Cole's voice, gentle as it is. Instinctively, he reaches for the revolver hanging from his waist, although he doesn't pull it. He's never been good at shooting first and asking questions later, something that's gotten him into trouble plenty of times during his previous gang-related excursions.

So he stands there, only partially armed with his back arched, stiff, like a frightened cat, yet unable to do much else except listen. Listen and feel his stomach churn and heart flutter at the mix of implications this stranger is throwing his way. Kieran can hear every single word Cole is saying, but it's taking so long to register that they may as well have passed from one ear through the other. He has to start from the beginning and replay the message in his head before beginning the arduous task of sifting through his piling questions.

Still guarded, Kieran swallows the lump that started to form in his throat, testing the waters before he attempts to speak. He starts with the broadest, and relative safest, of his inquiries.

"Y-You some kinda ghost, Cole? 'Cause if you are, I-I'm gonna let you know now I ain't in no mood for a hauntin'."

[killedwithlove]

Cole watches the action for the gun with curiosity, but nothing like fear, not even an awareness of the gun as a weapon. "No. Not a ghost. I thought I was, but now I know I'm not. I'm a spirit living in the mortal world. So I can help people."

There's words flickering from Keiran, words that almost catch what he is, but not quite. He's not an angel, but he's more like an angel than he is a person. "I came to you because you're hurting and I want to help you feel better. I know what happened to you. Your life was so unfair, but it never made you cruel."

[sleepyhollowed]

He doesn't know what to believe: his gut telling him everything the spirit is saying is legitimate or his brain telling him that anything less than completely distrusting the words coming out of Cole's mouth. Regardless, the palm on the hilt of his revolver falters. It eventually falls as the winner of his internal struggle makes itself known.

Kieran will trust Cole for now. He has a feeling that anything otherwise would be foolish.

He doesn't know much about spirits, only that supposedly talking with the wrong ones wasn't exactly the best of ideas, but with Cole's overall soothing presence, Kieran's pretty sure he's one of the good ones. Indeed, the word 'angel' crosses his mind once or twice, but it doesn't seem correct.

So 'good spirit' it is.

Then again, maybe just 'Cole' is fine.

He can't be sure about that. The only thing right now that Kieran is sure of is that his dredged up memories are pushing him to scream and yell and lash out at the only other 'person' here, but that would be just as unfair as the life that Cole's pointed out.

"Thanks, but, uh, unless you can work them spirit powers and change the past, I don't know if there's much you can do, Cole." Kieran answers. His tone is dry, reminiscent of the sardonic humor that's become one of his few coping mechanisms, but it's not unkind. Resigned, mostly.

"...N-Name's Kieran, by the way. Don't know if you already figured that out along with, y'know, a-all that other stuff."

[killedwithlove]

"Duffy. But not always Duffy. Yes, I know. And I can listen. I can let you know that someone cares about what happened and tell you that you didn't deserve it. I can tell you you were missed, mourned..."

He trails off, looking somewhere else.

"Their grief follows you. No one grieved Cole. No one noticed or cared. But they cared enough to look. To avenge. Mary Beth watered the flowers she laid with her tears." It's all he can offer, but that small acceptance might mean something.

[sleepyhollowed]

It means more than something.

It means just about everything.

It means that Kieran feels like he'd just been hit by a train, the wind knocked out of his lungs as he stumbles backward, hitting the barn wall with a muted thud. His chest constricts around his pounding heart once more; that lump is back in his throat and no amount of swallowing or deep breathing is pushing it away. Just as suddenly as this new wave of emotion, chaotic and confusing, washes over him, Kieran can feel tears start to cascade over his cheeks, wet and warm and uncontrollable with his wracking sobs. Something has given way inside of him, like a broken seal on a jar that's been left alone for too long with its contents ready to violently explode. He slides down, the wall guiding his body as he lowers it into the dirt, his legs incapable of holding him up anymore.

He can't tell if his tears are because of the mention of a name held so dear to him, the consequences of his passing, or the fact that the Van der Linde gang gave a damn to the extent that their frigid folk would allow (even with Cole's pacifying words, he knows there are members who would've celebrated his death based solely on his previous, unwillingly-made affiliations). Add in the all-encompassing guilt that comes with feeling even the slightest bit happy to learn that people cared about him, when he also knows that he's caused pain and heartache to those very same people--and especially for the young woman who Cole revealed liked (dare he believe, loved) him enough to leave him flowers and weep over him.

It takes a little while for his crying to subside, marked by a rough palm rubbing over his eyes, red-rimmed and tender, as well as his beard, wet and unkempt.

"I-I... S-Sorry... I just..." Kieran stammers, voice thick with emotion, "...They put me th-through hell. A-All of 'em did, 'cept Mary-Beth. I-I thought they... that they hated me."

He can see her in his mind's eye, standing over a grave with her eyes red in mourning. Maybe Arthur was there with her, too. He'd cared, right? After all, Kieran saved his life. Maybe that would've been enough. Anything to know that he'd been missed and that the one person he knew missed him the most wasn't left to do so alone.

"I didn't wanna hurt 'em... didn't wanna hurt her. I n-never thought that-that dyin' would... would..."

Kieran needs another moment, so he takes it.

"M'sorry. I'm so sorry."

He's not sure who he's apologizing to. It could be to Cole. It could be to the few loved ones he'd left behind. It could be to anyone, anywhere who happened to be listening. He's certain, though, that it's not aimed at himself. He's just so full of grief and anger and confusion about why this happened to him, that he's in no state for self-forgiveness.

[killedwithlove]

Cole comes close enough to crouch down, weight on the balls of his feet and chest resting against his thighs. He curls up small, all the long, thin limbs folding up and tucking in.

"You don't need to apologise to anyone for what was done to you. Yes. Your death hurt some people. Hurt Mary-Beth. But knowing you and caring about you gave her joy and that was worth it. Losing you was a price she was happy to pay for getting to know you in the first place."

He picks at his shoes. They're rapidly becoming more holes than shoes at this point, his toes grimy where they're failing to keep dirt out. "Crying is good for you. Like washing a wound. Tears wash the wounds in your spirit clean, to stop them festering."