extent | duplicitynet

i have good news for you
not wanting to be down there means you’re not a lost cause

start swimming up nicky
i’ve even got a spell for walking on water, so ill meet you there

i’m as stubborn as you are sad, so try me on this

i want to
at least i think i want to i just like

i'm so tired

so take a breath, rest, but don’t give up

just try

the rest will come

Edited 2022-04-17 06:45 (UTC)

maybe

god. i don't know when things got this bad. i didnt even realize.

wish i had answer for you, but i can guess, if it was easy to see, it wouldn’t consume so wholly

but you see it now that’s a start

sorry
i know youre like not a therapist you can bill me for these hours anyway i dont mind

no I’m a cleric it’s the same thing
spiritual leader
and also an actual leader
so thanks for the practice

what do you need?
not like in general
right now

i dont know
company
or a distraction
or to be so out of it i cant think at all

but i'd be shit company right now

too bad, my hand seems to be empty. might need something to fill it. maybe another hand
can i borrow yours?

i guess that'd probably be alright

where are you? i’ll be there in a flash

in the down. i can come to you tho. i'm very good at portalling now.

[ he does still helpfully send the address of the house he's languishing in all the same though, the one in the down that's conveniently located right next door to Nate's ]

[He’s very familiar with Nate’s address, at least with both Nate and Caleb living there, it’s one of the robes he chooses to perch on when homesickness rattles through him.]

no i’m invading your space, let me invade. i’ll be there soon

[He really isn’t that far and he’d already had his wings out for the roof he’d been drinking on. He lands on Nick’s roof and knocks on the shingles.]

knock knock come on up

that sounds like an osha violation

[ but despite that he's--a little lazily stepping out of one of those portals a moment later, not much feeling like scrambling up onto the rooftop right now. nick's in a weird sort of state, high enough that he's not really sad, but too sad to get any kind of high. mostly nick just feels out of sorts, and by the time he's stepping out onto the roof and holding his hand out to chris he hasn't really mustered a smile. ]

Don't let me fall now.

[He’s glad there’s no smile, it would feel fake even if it weren’t after all of that. This feels real and understandable.

Chris closes what distance there is and takes Nick’s hand, but steps in closer still.]

I never would.

[He leans down to press a single, brief kiss to his friend’s forehead, then pulls him into his chest so long arms can wrap tight around him.

After a second, the wings join in to curl around them both, blocking out the world a little bit.]

[ he thinks about making a joke of it, but the truth is there's a kind of security that comes with arms — and wings wrapped around him like this, that he doesn't want to make light of.

nick tucks his face in at chris's neck, exhales in a very slow, careful and deliberate kind of way. the kind of breath that doesn't shake at all, not even a little bit. when nick speaks he doesn't pull away, even if the words end up muffled. ]

I don't think I'm a good person. I think I've just tricked everyone into thinking it.

[This feels familiar. A month ago, he’d told Nate nearly the same thing while standing on the theatre’s roof instead of nearly his own. He pulls that certainty to his voice that their friend had so confidently used with him.]

You’re not a bad person, Nicky. You’re no saint and you fuck up because people fuck up, but the fact you care whether you’re a bad person or not means there’s good enough in you to be seen. Other’s have seen it. I see it. Even if you don’t trust yourself with it.

[He shifts only so one of his hands can reach up into Nick’s hair.]

Would you like a list?

[ he doesn't want to be convinced, he wants to keep wallowing in the awful picture he has over himself, thumbing over it like a bruise until it stops hurting quite so much. he doesn't want to hear a counter-argument--except for the part where he absolutely, desperately does. ]

I don't know.

[ his arms tighten where they're wrapped around chris in kind. he's clinging, really, and it's the sort of display that will probably be very embarrassing for nick down the line, but right now he's just too wrung out to care. ]

I might've just convinced you too.

[The cling might get to him later, it might not. It was hard to tell, the more emotionally messy the situation. Right now, it didn't matter how he felt, even if that stir rose up in him, the tingle in his limbs that always made him want to panic and pull away, he could shove it down and ignore it. For now, he focuses on keeping Nick pressed as close as possible between arms and wings and running his fingers softly through his hair.]

You think? I admit, I'd be fairly impressed if you did. I'm a decent judge of character in most cases. I'm gonna make you a list anyway, my face is too far above yours to stop me.

[He turns his face to kiss the top of Nick's head to prove it, but then turns his cheek to his hair again.]

You're not a bad person cause you fuss so much over every single plant I've seen and heard you have, you care more about their wellbeing than your own. Same goes for those little creature things you dote on. They'd be termed monsters in my world, but you put your heart in every one of them and they flourish, how could a thing with a bad heart give it and make things better?

I've seen how Nick and Caleb look at you, their eyes bright and joy in their smiles. You can't trick a person to love that deeply for this long and it's disservice to their feelings to think you might have. You make them happy and I can only imagine it's same for the rest of yours.

When you've got an idea in you, you practically vibrate for it, you want so desperately to reach out and change the world around you, to shape it into something better, more beautiful...there's plenty of evil in my world, from gods to monsters to people, and none of them see beauty or pure love or a world worth changing for the better. So, no, I don't think you're a bad person, Nick Ó Broin. Just a confused and hurt one. A messy as fuck one...so fine, all told.

[ nick is determined not to cry, because despite very much not being a crier he's doing an awful lot of it lately, and also because it's just a very embarrassing affair in general. it's just a hard thing to fight, when he's already so cracked open--fragile, really, even if the thought makes his skin crawl--and someone is trying so very hard to show just how much he sees nick.

somewhere along the way there's a hiccupping sort of sound, a shuddering sort of breath. his chest aches with the effort of holding back that flood, and for nothing because his face ends up wet with tears anyway. he's too raw, and chris is being too kind, for it to end any other way. ]

Long list. [ it's a weak sort of attempt at a joke, but an attempt nonetheless. ] You're nicer to me than I deserve, Chris.

[He's not a crier himself, it comes out of him like something ugle dragged free and usually at the most intense and worst moments...so feeling Nick shudder, feeling the wet against his neck, he doesn't try to stifle or still it for him. Better to let it out, even if it was unpleasant and felt terrible.

He just keeps his hold tight, like he can keep the pieces in some semblance of order for when he was ready to pick them up again.]

Hush, I'm not nice, I've been known to be kind, but I'm not nice. So if I'm nice to you, know it's exactly as nice as you deserve cause I'd not muster it for any other kind.

[There's a pause and his the smile he'd pulled together fades as his voice softens.]

I've got you. Promise I do.

[ it's almost second nature for him to shove everything down now, so much that it's hard to do anything else. nick doesn't want to have a breakdown, much less where anyone can bear witness to the whole sorry affair, but somehow the thought of pushing it away and slapping on a fake smile is marginally worse. just barely worse.

it's still hard to let out the shuddering exhale, to squeeze his eyes shut but not actively fight the tears. it's harder when he hears the crack in his voice, like there's something distinctly shameful about audibly struggling. there's an awful lot that nick manages to find shame in these days though, having a rough moment is no exception. ]

I don't know how I get through this. I'm just--tired. I don't know what to do. Sometimes I just want to like...disappear and go live in the woods or something.

[He keeps the petting motion in Nick's hair, soft but present, something he hopes is grounding as well as soothing and locks the tops of the wings close to block out as much of the ambient light of the Down out other than what filters in from below.]

You're getting through it right now. Doing this, talking, feeling, it hurts but that's cause you're letting it bleed. Sometimes that's what's gotta happen to feel better.

I bottled something up for three years once...it blew up in my face and the faces of everyone I loved and I yelled at them. They didn't deserve it, but I'd let it get bad. I did think about running away then.

How much do you have to talk about it before it starts getting better?

[ it's that joke but not really all over again, too...sad to sound anything less than tragic and genuine. he's sick of everything being a process, nick has always wanted quick fixes. this is hardly an exception.

but he tips his head a little, pressing the words less into chris's chest and closer to his neck, coming up for air. or at least attempting it, anyway. ]

I just want to be done. I don't even care what kind of done any more, you know? Like, if it's better, great, if it's not-- I just want it to be over with.

Hey now...

[Chris shifts so his hand drops from hair to chin to tilt Nick's face up a bit more and grant Chris access to his forehead where he rests his lips as he speaks.]

Better is what it'll need to be, you've got too many who care too much for it to be anything else. You know what, though, there's good news. Bet you'll feel a bit better in a few minutes, even. Every little bit you talk feels worse...but then feels cleaner. Scraped out but better for it.

Plus, I've got a secret little band-aid might help.

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