[ While Julie can't attest to how Nadine tells it, she personally has a habit of glossing over many of the worst elements of Captain Trips and the aftermath. It's partially to protect her own psyche from the trauma rearing its head, but she has also found that almost no one can really wrap their heads around her specific apocalypse. Nearly eight billion lives snuffed out in horrific suffering, all over within weeks. How the world went from light to dark almost instantaneously — all methods of contact were cut off, either willfully by the government or else practically due to the lack of people left to carry messages. The power went out in the early phases of the plague; all of the lights extinguished when the sun set, unimaginable darkness because she was the only one left to even try and light a fire.
It was the most stars she'd ever seen in the sky before.
There's no resistance when he lifts her, moves her, settles her. She does not have the energy or the willpower to do anything more than curl in on herself. Her body doesn't feel like her own, doesn't feel attached to her brain. Alien. She can barely even tell he's stroking her hair, feeling the movement more than the touch.
Julie has never been much of a crier. Crying is a tool more than anything to her. It manipulates people, helps her get what she wants. She occasionally is furious to the point of a tear, but she often blinks them away without issue. And even when she does cry, she specifically pushes herself to "cry pretty" — tears cutting smooth through her makeup, small sniffles, nothing louder than a gasp. Like a Hollywood starlet in a movie. She has practiced in a mirror before. When she does need to blubber, she does so in rooms spelled to be soundproof, doors not just locked but warded on to it. She doesn't wail in front of others.
She certainly does not bawl in front of them, howling and coughing. Only once in has she done so, in front of Geralt, and it was technically some sort of dream, so it's easy enough to rationalize away as not counting.
But now she weeps into Jesper's shirt, choking and gasping for air, face hot and wet. Her blood roars in her own ears, and the blob's bruit in her mind, deafening her. At a certain point, her cries become raspy from the dryness of her throat and mouth; her chest squeezes so tightly that she thinks she might die.
When she finally quiets, reduced to nothing but hiccups that feel sharp in her lungs, it is out of exhaustion. Her head feels floaty, light. Every muscle cramps and throbs and shudders. Her face is turned only enough to breathe, accompanied by deep sniffles. ]
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It was the most stars she'd ever seen in the sky before.
There's no resistance when he lifts her, moves her, settles her. She does not have the energy or the willpower to do anything more than curl in on herself. Her body doesn't feel like her own, doesn't feel attached to her brain. Alien. She can barely even tell he's stroking her hair, feeling the movement more than the touch.
Julie has never been much of a crier. Crying is a tool more than anything to her. It manipulates people, helps her get what she wants. She occasionally is furious to the point of a tear, but she often blinks them away without issue. And even when she does cry, she specifically pushes herself to "cry pretty" — tears cutting smooth through her makeup, small sniffles, nothing louder than a gasp. Like a Hollywood starlet in a movie. She has practiced in a mirror before. When she does need to blubber, she does so in rooms spelled to be soundproof, doors not just locked but warded on to it. She doesn't wail in front of others.
She certainly does not bawl in front of them, howling and coughing. Only once in has she done so, in front of Geralt, and it was technically some sort of dream, so it's easy enough to rationalize away as not counting.
But now she weeps into Jesper's shirt, choking and gasping for air, face hot and wet. Her blood roars in her own ears, and the blob's bruit in her mind, deafening her. At a certain point, her cries become raspy from the dryness of her throat and mouth; her chest squeezes so tightly that she thinks she might die.
When she finally quiets, reduced to nothing but hiccups that feel sharp in her lungs, it is out of exhaustion. Her head feels floaty, light. Every muscle cramps and throbs and shudders. Her face is turned only enough to breathe, accompanied by deep sniffles. ]