abraxaslogs | Now that you're actually not cool, I kinda like you better. (Open/Closed)

Honestly, Julie has not yet taken any steps to try and redirect Abby's channeling. There's no real reason that she should need to be moving or touching objects to properly cast spells; Julie suspects it's a mental block of some kind that simply requires working through.

But, as someone with the opposite effect (Julie has a tendency to cause fires, storms and explosions when she's not controlling her emotions well enough), she doesn't see an advantage to pushing Abby right now. The girl is still in the roughest part of the transition between worlds -- the part where the routine is settled, where she doesn't feel under threat, but too soon to have fully processed the loss of her old life. Julie knows how difficult that period is, how much of that time is spent either dwelling on the loss or else masking it to get through the day. It's tough.

She has always been someone who views distraction as the best way to handle feelings. You can't think about the pain if you're already busy focusing on other things. So Julie has Abby on a well-balanced schedule of five hours' practice a day, which she is happy to repeatedly inform Abby is fewer hours than she used to devote to working at it. Five hours, for someone with no school and only a part-time job, seems more than fair to Julie.

It's not strange to Julie that Abby's magic isn't behaving today; part of the practice is learning to make it consistent even when that's not what her emotions might dictate. So, until Abby throws herself to the floor like a Southern belle with the vapors, Julie doesn't say anything. She just observes from the couch, her legs folded under herself as she drinks from a mug of very sugary coffee that she's thrown ice into. The morning paper is next to her, disheveled from where she's pulled out only the sections that interest her, though she has tossed it aside as Abby's attempts get worse and worse.

"So, what's goin' on?" Julie asks, remaining on the sofa even as she cranes slightly to peer down at Abby. "Somethin' is clearly botherin' you."

Five hours a day of 'do magic' takes a lot of the magic out of magic. Which is a fucking sentence that makes sense, don't test her. Abby isn't overly bothered by her magic being weird, why would she do things normally? Being like everyone else sounds like the worst. And would also take some magic out of magic.

Still, her mind hasn't been in quite so many knots as it was right now. She'd managed to get back into her routine coming home from the Feywilds. But her magic had been getting harder to sculpt as they days ticked on after it. Some of it fell into place, other pieces still floated in the air, waiting to fall. So the timetable of when her powers turned is pretty obvious. Although today was much worse than yesterday.

Doesn't mean Abby's going to just- say it.

"Maybe I'm just not feeling it today?" She rolled from her back to lay on her stomach. Letting her hair fall over half her face as cover.

There's an argument to be made that everything seems less impressive when you learn how much practice and effort it took. Ice skating and ballet and all those other elegant performance things seem less otherworldly when you also watch people falling on their face as they work to master the skill.

"Mm, I'd buy that if you were just not gettin' anythin'," Julie says, sitting back again and watching Abby roll around on the ground. "But you're still gettin' results. Just fucked up ones. Fucked up results come from fucked up feelings. And yours are gettin' worse by the day, so. Might as well talk it out 'fore it really backfires on you."

She takes a sip of her coffee, eyebrows arched high. Julie won't make Abby talk about it, but she has given ample warnings over the months about letting things fester until it's too late. That's how you wind up sleeping under a raincloud.

Just because Julie's right, and Abby knows Julie's right, doesn't mean Abby has to like it. And it's feelings, they're gross and complicated. And Abby has gone out of her way to not really think about these because the Feywilds created a lot of them.

Abby shifted again from on her stomach to sitting, legs folded up under her and resting her chin on her hands. There's a lot of this shit, all of it swirling together and not all of it sane. Probably start with the newest, and maybe work back to the rotten root of it all.

"At the ball a guy hit on me. And I mean 'kick Inej out of my room so I can get it out of my system' hit on me." Abby's self-image is... bad. Her scrutiny of her own flaws constant. And number of times she's validated for anything low. So that degree of positive attention is like sunlight to a moleman. Near impossible to tolerate. "And I think I know who he is."

That wasn't what soured her spells exactly, but what soured that was souring her magic. They were connected at the end of this dark road.

Feelings are gross and complicated, which is part of the reason Julie didn't ask until it was visually obvious that something is stuck in Abby's craw. But Julie did grow up with other girls around her, cousins and friends, so she isn't as emotionally stunted when it comes to discussing other people's emotions as she is with her.

Julie will not seek guidance with her own emotions until her life is literally collapsing around herself. Which honestly explains a lot about everything that's happened to her over the past five years.

Elbow propped on the arm of the couch, she listens to Abby explain; her eyes narrow a little and her head tilts curiously. "Okay, so is it that it's someone gross and you don't wanna fuck him?" she asks, trying to piece these two things together. Clearly they didn't fuck, so Abby not liking the guy doesn't add up to this level of unhappiness.

Abby doesn't shift positions again, just staring at a spot on the floor in front of her rather than looking up. She's not been broadcasting what she wore to the ball. Inej knew, or should know, because she was finishing the outfit in the room all week beforehand. She had the feeling that some people she talked to might have figured her out.

Or maybe that's just the fear in her head taking over.

But letting Julie know who Abby was at the ball is about as safe telling anyone can be, and there's really no way around that part of this conversation. Everything, it seems, comes back to Abby's stellar sense of self-worth, "He's not gross. It's- I don't know if he would have flirted with me if he'd known it was me under all that princely façade. If he was just interacting with me."

As much as that makes it sound 'worried he's gay' that isn't it. Honestly that'd be better, easier. That's a less painful reason than where Abby's head is at. Hell, she'll also take 'thinks she's a child' over where her mind is at in this moment.

Julie sighs and seems to really think about this. On the one hand, Julie is wildly confident about her appearance and sexual attractiveness; she spent most of her post-puberty life as the most beautiful woman for a hundred miles in any direction. She knows what she looks like, and she is from a painfully tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Being a big fish in that small pond made her keenly aware of her own beauty, allowed her to use it as a bargaining chip in life, and she has the self-assurance that goes with all of that.

At the same time, she understands being insecure in the idea of people wanting her for everything besides her personality. When beauty and sex are your primary currency, it becomes difficult to find people who care about anything else. It's just people using each other, and that hurt when she wanted connection. She just made an effort to stop seeking connection, forced herself to be satisfied with just sex and power.

It wasn't until her time in Abraxas that she realized she couldn't stay satisfied with so little.

"What makes you think he wouldn't?" she finally asks, mouth a bit twisted. "Did he ever say he doesn't feel that way?"

"I only figured out who he is since we got home." Abby didn't put two and two together in the party, there was enough going on, enough variables at play she couldn't track. Also he was real fucking distracting being so goddamn charming. She did not have the focus to see through his disguise then, but since then she's been listening for him since they got home. Now that she knows, she doesn't know what to do. "I was a little distracted feeling like I was suddenly naked after a few whispered words."

She's such a fucking virgin.

"Between playing up the flirty prince vibes I had going on, and the effects of that LoFi Beats Tree suppressing some of the shit in my head I was really in a different place." Hence her magic suffering since they got home. She's more aware of the noise in her head since being without it for a bit, and add on this extra worry making her a little sick she's just- a mess.

More than usual.

Sitting statue still in the center of the floor, not even twisting the hem of her shirt or any of her smaller movements to just move.

"But why do you think he only liked you in disguise?" Julie's head tilts. "Did he ever say somethin' that made you believe he doesn't want you? Or are you makin' that choice for him?"

She doesn't say it in a pointed, critical way. She genuinely means it -- if he's never said that he's uninterested, then isn't Abby jumping to an assumption? Maybe he's equally attracted out of costume, but he needed the mask to open that part of himself to other people. Everyone needs a mask for different things. Being someone else can provide that shield.

Julie hums. She'd quite enjoyed the Listening Tree, spent most evenings through the week there, at least for a bit. But then again, she does always have the Singularity in her head, so she was a bit more used to that piece of the puzzle than most.

"So, why can't you go back to that place? What's there?"

"Other than the fact that he's your age and I was dressed as a boy and he didn't recognize me?" Like- as much as she'd appreciate a non-Jesper person seeing her that way, if only for the novelty of it. Still, could he, if he knew. Did she want him to know, did she want him, in particular, to flirt with her. "You think I should go for it?"

Abby's hand drifted down to her shirt hem like usual, twisting the fabric. "I'm not- trans or anything, being a boy was just a fun escape from myself. Playing into all the dumb shit boys get away with, but not as actively predatory. The whole milady shit without expecting a blowjob at the end of five minutes of kindness."

She loved the half-truth of playing the game of the ball, pretending to be someone else to 'win.' Hiding herself within a mask and another mask on top of it. It was a good lie. There was more to it, more words she was trying to dredge up and say, because she figures Julie won't use them against her, but she'll still know them. And outside of the words being robbed of meaning by weird tree magic, nobody knowing them meant Abby could pretend they weren't there. "When I looked at dresses either they wouldn't disguise me well, or I didn't feel comfortable wearing them. And that stupid fucking voice in my head kept reminding me of everything wrong- everything I hate, with my looks."

I'd be so easy to claim it was Press's voice, the person most likely to say it to her face. But it was her voice, she thought these things well before Press found that weakness of her's. Which is why Jesper's offer to murder him for it was sweet, but wouldn't kill the part of her that kept it alive.

With a sigh, Julie hums and rocks her head from side to side. "I think that maybe you need to let go of our world a little more," she says bluntly. "I know that, back home, sixteen is still a kid, especially for folks like you. But this ain't America, and that wasn't the way our world was for most of its time, neither. You're an adult here. A young adult, sure, but other than people like me and Nadine, other Americans basically... that guy in his mid-twenties doesn't look at you and see a little girl. If he's one of us, the modern Earth folks, then yeah, it's sketch, but to a lot of these folks, you're old enough to be married and have babies. So yeah, go for it. As long as it don't feel weird, and there's no weird... fetishizin' of your age or innocence or whatever? Then yeah, why not. Don't go fuck like, a middle-aged guy, but I'm not that much older than you. You and I are from the same year, right? 2020ish? For your purposes, I'm twenty-two. The extra years were here."

Okay, so maybe she has to put a little bit of an attitude behind. Just a smidge. But she will not be called old.

But it is precisely due to her age and their shared society that Julie is able to understand exactly what Abby is talking about. Getting to shed the shackles of femininity, having license to pretend. She knows what that voice sounds like, too, because there is no one good enough to escape that voice when you're a woman in America. Society collapsed, and still men in Julie's world were present to scapegoat and punish women, to criticize them and threaten them, to keep them in line. Their world was determined to break women down in a way that simply does not exist in Abraxas.

Still, the voice remains. Julie's tells her that she's stupid, that she's worthless unless she is always putting on a show. That the only thing people want her for is her appearance, her body. And even knowing that those are her strongest assets is not enough to stop it from telling her what she needs to improve on.

So she's not going to tell Abby that she's beautiful, that there's nothing wrong with the way she looks. Julie knows that it doesn't help, that it's impossible to believe.

"Why does that voice think those things are wrong?" she asks instead. "You weren't born with that voice. So where did it get those things? And why does it care? What would be good enough for the voice?"

There's a very good logic to it. That she's not a kid because nobody treats her like a kid. Except Nadine, and even that's a bit variable as to what. Abby still felt like she was in over her head before getting into the fact that 'these other worlds' often weren't very safe. So they all had to deal with shit she never did, so she had no clue what she was doing.

"So- if he's down, but not like eager, I should- what? Just go for it?" The other problem is Abby has zero idea how to get a guy, if she did she wouldn't have answered any of Press's texts. Ever.

As to the voice, three things all happened in roughly the same time. And any, or all, or the perfect storm of them, could be the root. Her parents, her friends, and her phone. Her parent started fighting, and at the same time Max came out, and Norah grew out of her awkward phase, and Abby gained access to the internet. Which of those did the worst, which did the most? Who the fuck knows.

"Less blubber on my thighs, boobs that are- like- the same size. Looking like Hailey Bieber," She shifts to hugging her legs up against herself, making her look as small as possible. "Social Media definitely didn't fucking help me, but maybe that voice is just part of me."

She never saw Norah having this problem. Or Ginny. Max... was high strung came out when she was eight and vomits up every emotion she can at all times. Outlier, not the same. Max would have gone to that ball and swapped costumes four times and then gotten recognized each time because she can't help herself.

"Yeah, sure, why not? If that's what you want too, then do it." Julie has always been a proponent of doing whatever strikes her. She shrugs. "What's the worst that happens? Well, I mean, okay, he could always kill you and chop your body up, Dahmer-style, but that's such a small chance. And you'll tell me his name so I can burn him from the inside out as punishment even if it happens. So he'd get his, if that's his game. But realistically, what, he tries to ghost?" She laughs a little. "There's like fifty of us, total. Maybe twenty-five in Cadens, max. Good luck to him, in that case."

It actually makes hook-ups both more and less complicated; more complicated because there's no avoiding each other, but less complicated because it's sort of destigmatizing to know that they're going to have to overlap. What other choices do they have? Fuck natives? Ew.

Well, ew for the human natives, at least. Some of the werewolves, vampires and Fey are unfairly hot.

Nodding, Julie sucks her teeth. Social media was a bitch, all right, but she can't say that she doesn't miss it. What she has found, though, is that she doesn't necessarily miss the part of social media where she just stared at filtered Hollywood elites, hating that she wasn't one of them; no, what she misses are the fun parts of it. Funny videos, comment sections, the parts that made time slip away.

"Hailey Bieber was a liar and a dumbass," Julie says archly. "Her face was pumped full of filler and carved like a Christmas ham, and the only reason she wasn't workin' the stock room at American Apparel is 'cause her dad was the worst Baldwin. Same as Kylie and Kendall, the Hadids, all of those girls. At least Kim went through the trouble of fuckin' her way to the top. The rest were just born on third, convinced they hit a triple."

Julie has opinions on Hollywood "It" girls.

"Your tits are fine. Unless you are a secret genius at stuffin', they don't look different. Isn't that what's important? That they look the same, to the eye?" Her brow knits, and Julie touches her own breasts, sincerely considering each handful before she shakes her head. "Plus, honestly, unless one of 'em straight shrivels and falls off, literally no guy will ever notice a difference. And even then, they won't care. Guys just want to see 'em. Girls don't care either, by the way."

She takes a long sip of coffee, then raises her eyebrows. "Why do you think your thighs are fat? Compared to what?"

"If I had any concerns Sylvain would do that, I would probably just be throwing up at flirting with him." Abby huffs out a small breath at the concept, and at the fact that if anyone would do that to her. It'd be the one guy to pay attention to her in her old life. Not any of the murderers or criminals she's met here.

She doesn't mention her concerns are just that he'll reject her for all the things she's just opened up about.

She'll just gloss over the Hailey and Hollywood talk. As much as she wants to argue that isn't fair, she'd never thought too hard about it just in looking at herself in the comparison. Which again has a place in her mind, but not the bigger stake.

"I know boys, and lesbians, are stupid and literally just want to suck titty." She's watched all the guys, and Max, look at Ginny's mom with just- unabashed lust. No thoughts just the soundtrack of a 70's porno playing between their ears. She knows that Georgia Miller clothed will get that reactions she couldn't get naked, "I don't really care what they see, I care what I see."

Which was the heart of all of this, she looked at herself and her features. Looked at her friends, and saw it. The stark contrasts. "So my best friends and I have sleepovers, all the time. And when we use those to sneak out and get drunk, we usually all change together into our party clothes. Max eats the most junk I have ever met, and somehow keeps that perky slim thing. And Norah's only gained weight above the sternum. Never anywhere else. And I-"

Abby lets the thought trail. The obvious conclusion to it going on. Unlike the other things, that one people commented on, that one they noticed. Regardless of what she did. "I just- if Sylvain isn't interested cause I'm a kid, or cause I'm a girl, I won't care. Fucking whatever. He could reject me for being me, then what do I do."

"But why is that what you see?" Julie sighs. "We both know your boobs aren't visibly different. You don't have like, one A cup and one D cup. So you are lookin' so closely that you can see these teeny tiny differences, and you're lettin' your mind go crazy to make those differences seem huge. I guarantee you, you spend enough time analyzin' Hailey Bieber's tits, they probably weren't identical neither. Perfect symmetry isn't real. But you don't spend your time measurin' your fingers and toes to make sure none of 'em are longer than the other, right?"

Julie understands what she means. Understands why it's these parts of her body. It's hammered in from birth, that there is a mold to be fit, perfection to be strived for. It wasn't until she lived in the aftermath of Trips that Julie understood what a scam it all really was. Beauty was still valuable, of course -- beauty was what catapulted her into the elite of New Vegas. But it was not the same pressure; no one was calorie counting or picking at their appearance in the mirrors. The circumference of a thigh or one tit weighing a few ounces more was meaningless.

Another sigh, then she takes a deep breath. "Look, I know I can't make you believe anythin'. I know that everything I could ever tell you is somethin' you already know, logically, and I know that doesn't mean shit when it comes to emotions. What I can tell you is that no one has ever been on their deathbed and thought 'If only my thighs had been a little skinnier when I was sixteen'. No one's life has ever changed or been saved by fixatin' on every tiny, insignificant little flaw. Humans are flawed, all of us. There are things I don't like about how I look. Your friends had things they didn't like about how they looked. That's just how it works."

Squirming, Julie readjusts herself, tucks her legs under herself as she sits up straight. She holds her coffee in her lap with both hands. "And you're gorgeous. You have a face like a fuckin' porcelain doll. You have the cutest mouth I think I've ever seen. Your tits and your thighs are fine. And any motherfucker who would reject you for not havin'... toothpicks for legs or whatever? That's a motherfucker who doesn't deserve any of your attention. They have nothin' to offer you. People with shit to offer don't notice things like that."

With another sip, she shakes her head a little, closes her eyes and then opens them again with a look of resignation. "Like I said, I know I can't make you believe or listen to me. But you should know, I don't stand anythin' to gain by lyin' to you."

Edited 2023-07-12 16:03 (UTC)

Abby did know all of this, well... okay not all all. The porcelain doll line was new and not one she's ever fucking heard before. So that got a smile out of her. People being nice to her was still weird. Looking at her like that was weird. She knew, vaguely, people were fond of her. But in that- she's helpless and out of her fucking depth way.

Or they were Jesper.

"I didn't get to- like, look at myself naked after my visits to the Fey whatever Tree. Because didn't wanna talk about this shit with Inej, we're not there yet. But I could just look at myself, and the comments people said about me were there, but I didn't really give a fuck about them." She did try, she really did, to hold onto that feeling. But crippling doubt about oneself didn't just go away thanks to magic trees.

Otherwise she wouldn't do nearly as many drugs. She wouldn't try so hard to be seen not giving a fuck, and feel like she failed when she suddenly does. Why she couldn't tell anyone about her parents for weeks until it was past the point she could deal. All the shit in her head was all twisted together and it was easier to carve it out than to unsnare it.

"I know the shit I'm thinking doesn't matter how much it feels, but it still feels that way. Before coming here, one guy ever did anything with me. He was also the captain of making me feel like shit about myself. And that fact sure hurts more that good people seem to give a crap about me," Abby drags a finger over the floor, small movements, nothing coming to them right now. "Before you offer, Jesper already has dibs on murdering him."

She's not sure she wants Press dead, but he'd do well to have horrible scars to explain to anyone he's ever with ever again. Maybe that's evil of her. Maybe it's just fair.

"I wonder if I can recreate that tone in the Horizon, that effect it had. I know I can't rely on that, but it'd be nice to block out my own bullshit for a few hours." That was sure an idea to work on, she huffs out something approaching a laugh, "Although it might just be easier if I got railed or something."

She's not sure if she's joking.

The feeling of helplessness, of being confounded by the genuine affection and care of others, it's familiar. Julie lost every single person she'd ever known or loved in one fell swoop, and then she was trapped in a place where no one could be trusted. Where everyone was out for themselves, and they were all under the constant monitoring of someone who could read their very thoughts. She forgot, for a long time, how to function outside of that atmosphere of fear and suspicion and doubt. Trusting that anyone actually cared, was honest or real with her, it did not come back easily. There were steps forward and back. Months and months before she could even begin to believe anything anyone said to her.

"Honestly, getting railed probably would help." It's more thoughtful than that sentence has any right to be, Julie's mouth in a pensive frown. "Not that like, getting banged is a proper fix, but more that... that you'd see. You'd see that, to someone else, they can't notice the things you do. And it's hard to think about all that kinda bullshit when you feel good."

This is, of course, making the leap that whoever Abby fucks will be good at it. The point stands, but it does require the sex be decent.

Julie scoffs a little, rolls her eyes. "It sounds like he's just a dick. Some people are dicks. They'll say anythin' they can come up with to hurt other people, usually 'cause they feel like shit themselves. And with guys like that, sometimes the way they get girls is to make those girls feel just as bad as they do. 'Cause the only way he can have you is to convince you that you can't do better. And you can.

Have you ever tried that kinda meditation where someone makes noise with a bowl? Like oooooooooooooooooooooooh." She helpfully lows out a long, single note, mimicking the movement of circling the rim of a bowl.

Abby adjusts this diagnosis from 'railed' to 'eaten out.' As if the bigger importance is her pleasure, and the one thing all three of her friends made clear was that shoving a dick in it wasn't the be all end all of pleasure. "If good fucking was a replacement for therapy the world would be a very different place."

Better world? Who the fuck knows.

"I knew what he was when I invited him into my room." Matt Press was a psychopath. If there was ever a genuine concern she might end up dead in a ditch due to a person she knew, it was him. And she was fucked up enough to go along with it just to have any attention at all. After a few weeks of isolation.

Abby will just- stare, trying to parse out what the fuck Julie's on about with meditation and bowls. Her eyes shift to the wine glass, "How many of those you have before I got here?"

"Sure would," she agrees. "But it can at least keep the stress down. Hard to get into a mental spiral when you're fucked out and exhausted. Plus, y'know, endorphins and shit."

With a snort, Julie rolls her eyes a little. The vast majority of people involved with shitbags know it. The problem isn't knowing -- it's getting entangled before you know. "So then what, you get off on bein' treated like shit? Either you invited him because you knew what he was, or in spite of it. I'm not sayin' you're ignorant, I'm sayin' you settled. Maybe not entirely 'cause of him, but definitely some of him. Between you and him, you got it in your mind that he was the only option. Unless he was the only guy in your town, then he wasn't."

She shoots Abby a look. "I'm not fuckin' drunk, this is coffee. It's a thing, it's about the sound... waves, or vibrations or somethin'. Like how there's different kinds of yoga? There's different meditations too, and the one with the bowl is about the noises." God, Julie wishes she had a better memory for this kind of thing. It's so obnoxious to know exactly what you're talking about, but not how to describe it.

"You should talk to Stephen Strange, he'll know what I'm talkin' about. He's a total culture vulture for Asian stuff like that. His domain is like, part Himalayan mountains."

Abby wanted a drink, was it too early for alcohol? Maybe. But this was definitely a 'I need grain alcohol topic' they were getting into.

Abby fell backwards on the floor, settling for just not seeing Julie see her as she talked. "I guess settling is the word. He's a piece of shit, but he actually spoke to me. While all the rest of my friends disowned me over something that wasn't even my fucking fault."

As much as it shouldn't feel big anymore, being here for months and all that being her involved. Nothing about here compared really, to the feeling of the three people you trust most in the whole world turning their fucking back on you. Not having time for you as your parents lose their fucking minds. And not caring enough to check on you while it all happens. And just like with Press, she still fucking cared.

"I couldn't deal dealt with dad getting a new girlfriend and mom being a fucking zombie after the divorce, and he was there." Was it a bad fucking idea, sure. But a little late to fix that now.

"I don't know how you take your coffee." She'll let the insinuation sit with a smirk. She listens to whatever the fuck Julie has in mind. Soundwaves can mess with your head, that's a given it's a thing people sell all the time. Sleep patterns and noise machines exist for one reason or another. Money. "So some sorta Tibetan Monk shit?"

"I get it." Julie admits it immediately. Her goal isn't to make Abby feel bad or imply that she's naïve or unwise. But she wants to make sure that Abby can see the pattern. Not seeing it means it keeps going. "Look, sometimes there is all you really need. Just don't think you can't do better than some fuckin' creep. That's all. You can. You just have to choose to believe it."

A lot of life, Julie has found, is just faking it until everyone else buys it too. False confidence is just as effective with other people as real confidence usually is, and having everyone else believe in you tricks your mind into believing too. And Abraxas is a rare, rare opportunity for the Summoned, where they can make themselves into exactly who they've always wanted to be, and no one will be any the wiser.

"Anyway, the only way you're ever gonna find out is to try, right? And if he would really say no to you 'cause of your thighs or your boobs, then fuck 'im. I'll teach you how to set his shoes on fire from across the room."

She nods a little. "He's a master of the mystic arts," she says, clearly sarcastic. "Which is like a Tibetan wizard, basically. I think. But he's white. Like, very white."

"Working on believing that," It's hard, okay. Everything her life has done so far, except being here, has reinforced this idea. It's true, in her head. It takes some work to make it clearly false. It wasn't there when she first visited the Horizon. There's a lot swimming around her head, but it's clear she's feeling better as white clouds form off her shirt as she wrings her hand on the hem.

She bats the clouds apart once she spots them.

"I do still need to talk to him, if I don't it'll just be fucking weird. And it's better to find out who he is now rather than wait." The seeds of an idea are taking root in her head, based on Julie's advice but disregarding a lot of it for a better plan. Or a stupider plan. Or a brilliant plan. Who can say? "Even if I don't try to fuck him. But I might, I don't know."

Sex feels like a thing she wasn't meant to just have, especially since romance still feels impossible.

"So... you know him because you sell him weed." Listen, she's not presuming anything other than every stereotype that applies to 'master of the mystic arts.' "Does he have a hundred year old van with a shag interior?"

Julie knows that it's hard, it's so hard to let go. But one thing she figured out is that being brought to Abraxas is the rare opportunity to just dismiss those things entirely. Every day is just a matter of realizing, little by little, that things can be different now.

She watches Abby break up the clouds with a small smile.

"I think you should," Julie says, eyebrows arched. "It's stupid and cliché, but that whole you miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take thing is true. But do what you think is best."

Sputtering a little, Julie laughs at the idea of Stephen as a van-dwelling hippie. "God no," she manages, still chuckling. "Stephen is like, a neurosurgeon. Literally. And also a sorcerer, which is "the mystic arts", I guess. He's pretty much the smartest person I ever met."

"I think if I'm going to take a first shot, it should be with someone who flirted with me as me. Instead of me as a prince." She might make a play at Sylvain later, she wasn't against it or anything. Just her mind was putting all her options out there she had an option that knew her, and that just felt better.

"If my magic is all rainbows and happiness you'll know I didn't strike out."

'White Guy master of the mystic arts' has to live in a van down by the river. You don't get to be a doctor or whatever and be a master of the mystic arts. That's just not how it goes! "So talk to a neurosurgeon about meditation shit? That's really where we've ended up?"

"I didn't know you had that option." It doesn't much surprise Julie to hear that someone was flirting with Abby. More that she wonders if it's one of the usual suspects, or someone a bit more interesting. "Gettin' railed helps, but don't expect it to be like, a miracle cure. You still gotta work on your own shit, unfortunately.

Taking a sip of coffee, Julie shrugs. "I mean, who knows brain shit better than a neurosurgeon?" she asks. Not that she thinks it's the same as a therapist or psychologist, but for the way that soundwaves can interact with the brain? That seems like something that might crop up in medical school. "And sure, maybe the whole schtick is a little Steven Seagal-y, but he is the Sorcerer Supreme of his world. Or maybe of his whole universe? I'm not exactly clear on how it works. But he knows his shit."

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everybodysterrible - 2023-07-25 19:52 (UTC) - Expand

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