abraxaslogs | [ march / open ] you left me, you left me no choice but to stay here forever

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[ march / open ] you left me, you left me no choice but to stay here forever

Who: Julie + others + open
When: March
What: this month is A Lot (this post is a catchall)
Where: Cadens + the Horizon

[

bitchcraft or bitchcraft#2753 for a starter ]

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[ when sam steps through the front doors to julie's club, it takes him a second to get situated. he knows why he is here, which is why the people dancing and the lights moving and the music, still going, feels more off than anything else. he's seen julie's domain in all its forms, from the raging parties to the empty holiday halls. he knows how the rooms can reflect her moods. knows that, at a first glance, this might make it seem like there's not much at all to worry about. but he knows better, and that is what leads him through the crowd and the door to the loft. up the stairs, and passed the protective, angry, still-kind-of-terrifying tiny unicorn who stomps his hooves and tries to stop him from that last step.

it doesn't stop him - there's very little that would - and as sam steps around the chihuanicorn and into the loft, he pauses just for long enough to knock on the doorframe. it's a poor attempt at trying to make this less of a I'm coming in and more of a anyone home? but it falls flat. and part of sam knew it would.

the main room of the loft is empty, but it doesn't take long for sam to find the door open to the balcony. to walk across the sitting area and out into the plants, next to the jacuzzi. he walks out and considers calling to her, considers asking to see if she'll turn, if she'll want to stand, even to give her the chance to tell him to fuck off. except that sam knows he wouldn't listen if she did, knows that whatever it is he'd say wouldn't be of help.

so instead, sam just walks - moving to stand in front of the chair and to catch sight of julie, hollow-eyed and distant - staring off down into the club. he tilts his head a bit to get her to look at him, a small, sad smile on his face when he finally speaks. ]

Hey, beautiful. [ it's a very gentle, fond sort of endearment - heavy, in a way, as they both know what he's here. full of the same worry in his eyes for her that he's come in here with before. ] Can I sit?

[ At this point, she's been sitting in the same spot for more than two days. The only movements she's made have been intermittent bursts of magic that are more reflexive than intentional -- either she shapes the magic, or else it will shape itself, and that usually ends poorly. But she can't see it from her own eyes, can't feel the magic become pliant and bend under her direction. It's all like someone else is doing it, someone who looks just like her but isn't.

Julie is across the balcony, curled in a ball, watching. She has been, the whole time. She can't cry or scream or speak. Only watch the not-Julie do the same, sit immobile in silence, her eyes cast over the club, over the water, over nothing because she's not really seeing any of that. Real Julie doesn't see them either. It's like being wrapped in fog on both sides, with the real barely able to sense the fake just a few feet away.

There is movement and both Julies watch Sam cross, chased the whole while by Baron, who squeals in anger and furiously paws the ground next to Sam's feet before he leaps into the chair to sit next to not-Julie. The way she looks at Sam is blank, only the barest flicker of recognition in her eyes. She wants to say something. They both do. But what is there to say when you don't have a voice anymore? When you've been knocked out of your own body?

She manages a jerky nod, a muffled word. ] Yeah.

[ grief really is something of a marvel, in and of itself. the way it can take up an entire space, push the air from their lungs, take and hold and refuse to give back any sense of how to function, how to speak. sam's felt it himself a few times, and seen it in others plenty more. and whether or not it makes any of this easier, he - at the very least - doesn't shy away from it.

she does look over to him when he crosses the space, but by the time he's close enough to her, he can tell she's not all there. or, not that she's not there, more so that there's something else there taking up her space. baron is very obviously not happy with his presence here, but sam pays him very little mind, waiting for julie to give him an answer one way or another.

when she does manage that jerky nod, her muffled agreement, sam nods and moves to the opposite side that baron has chosen, sliding into the seat with her. the chair is definitely big enough for two people, but there is very little space left, and it leaves them with their shoulders pressed together. there's an urge to reach for her hand, or just to put his arm around her shoulders, or find any combination of comfort he could give with physical touch alone - but he waits for a moment, first. checking. ]

You've got quite the bodyguard.

[ if there's any hint - anything at all - he's going to be a lot pushier about it. but for now he just waits, turning his hand over on his thigh, palm up. ]

[ She hadn't even known she still had the capacity for grief like this. But, retrospectively, she never had the chance to grieve at all, for anything that happened to her -- when she watched every single person she ever knew slowly suffocating to death, she didn't have time to process it, because she had to focus on surviving. On not going insane in the loneliness after, on walking across the country, on filling a role in the new society that let her ignore it all. And then she was here, in Abraxas, and there was always something else to focus on.

But Lloyd... Lloyd had been there since the minute they brought her into Vegas. He was there when she died, he was there in the dungeons, he was with her until he suddenly wasn't. The only stability she'd had for over a year. It never mattered that it was a strange, tangled relationship, that he often annoyed her or made things worse. He was still there. Here. And now he's gone, but he's not just gone, he's gone, because he is dead like she is dead. There was never any going back. Their lives depended on them staying in this world.

And he didn't stay.

Sam sits, and Julie seems to somehow curl into herself even more, as if to create more room by making herself as small as possible. She looks at his open palm, then at his face, and she doesn't say anything because she doesn't have a voice. Her expression doesn't change at all, but she blinks and there are tears streaming down her face on both sides. She can feel them, physically. She can see them, from where she sits across from herself. They're another thing outside of her control, though, just another thing that seems to be happening no matter what she wants. ]

[ he knows how that goes - the number of people who don't give themselves that time, or - for a lot of cases - aren't given that time. he knows enough about julie's life, about her home, that he can make as much of an assumption as necessary. that julie's never really been allowed time. that she's never really slowed down enough to process. that now, when there isn't anywhere to go or anyone else to worry about, it feels a bit like the water is just rising and rising all around.

which means that sam takes this slow. he moves, slow, to sit down next to her. doesn't react when she seems to pull away. the open palm is an invitation, above all else, and he is patient as she looks at it. as she looks from it, to sam. he doesn't know exactly when it is she starts crying, but between one moment and the next he can see them.

part of his heart splits, at that. watching the tears on her cheeks for just a moment before he finally lets out a breath and releases any possible tension there had been in him during his waiting. ]

I'm sorry. [ he says, softly, before he's turning and reaching for her. slowly moving his arms over to pull her into a hug. he's not entirely sure what he'd do if she tried to pull away from him, but he's willing to face that when it happens, if only because the blank expression she holds onto is killing him, just a little bit. ]

[ The water has already risen above her head; if she didn't know logically that she was breathing, she would pass out from the feeling of drowning. And she knows, she knows that physically she is fine, that she is getting air, but her lungs feel so tight, her head is swimming.

Lloyd is dead. He's dead and gone, and sure, maybe sometimes people come back, but she doesn't feel like he has much of a shot at it. His connection to the Singularity was weak at best. And even if he does make it back, the chances of him returning before Flagg are nearly zero, and Flagg will kill them all if he gets back. Maybe it's better for Lloyd if he instead gets obliterated in a nuclear explosion, but -- but what does that mean for Julie, here and without him?

Sam had apologized to her once before, for things he couldn't control and took no part in, and it shattered her then, cracked the dam. It does the same now, and though she doesn't embrace him back, she doesn't pull away either. A hoarse, broken sound comes from somewhere deep and low in her chest, somewhere she didn't even know existed, and her stomach aches as she sobs, gasps for breath. Her nails dig into her skin where she's still wrapped around herself, clinging to herself because she's afraid to let go. ]

[ it's a strange, impossible thing, watching someone unravel at the hands of their own grief. he's seen moments of julie's emotions breaking through, has caught glimpses of the walls she tries to keep up and the mask she's so expertly crafted for herself. it's part of what keeps him here, now, and why he finds himself coming back and then back again. because she is so used to doing this alone, even when she isn't.

julie doesn't hug him back, but that is so far from his mind. instead, he wraps his arms a little tighter around her, adjusts them so that she's pulled a little closer, so that he can sit right here for as long as she needs it. because that's really the only thing sam knows he can do for her right now - to sit here, to keep his arms around her, to cradle her as she sobs and to squeezes his arms and to mutter softly little (hopefully) comforting nothings of i know and i'm sorry and i'm not going anywhere.

the idea is to let her just cry it out. which, in retrospect, sounds a bit more callous than he means it. really, he just wants her to feel. to feel as much of it as she can and to keep going, and for him to be here while she does it so if she needs the help coming back together, he will be here, or if she just needs the grounding, he will be here too.

at some point, his hand does start rubbing at her back - gentle, steady shoulders. ]

Breathe, Julie. I'm right here.

[ His reminder to breathe is not lost on her -- she is, in fact, quite close to hyperventilating. She feels like the ground is falling away under her, like she is on a cartoon cliff where the edge breaks off in a perfect chunk to leave her scrambling in the air. And everything is so out of her control, even down to her own body, because she can't stop and god, she just wants it to stop, that's all.

She gasps and tries to catch her breath, her hands finally doing something after so long of doing nothing. All they do is grab limply at him, her nails coated in a thin line of blood from how hard she had clawed at her own flesh. She tries to make words come out, but they're mostly lost in between her choking and the almost animal sounds that are coming out of her, that she can't seem to exercise any will over. How can she breathe when Lloyd can't, when she won't be able to if the same thing happens to her?

All that gets out is a stilted, slurred sentence. ]

You don't understand.

[ there's not a whole lot sam can do at this point, no matter how much he wants to. he reminds her to breathe, rubs small circles into the back of her shoulders, and holds her. she rocks, she fights, she scrambles, and sam just holds on. it is a moment or so before she actually grabs for him, her grip weak, and sam just. keeps at it.

it does break something at him, when her words make it out - quiet and slurred and thick with pain. he thinks back on all the things she'd told him, everything that he knows is waiting back for them, and his stomach clenches at the thought.

of lloyd. of what he's going to find, if the theories are true and you do just go right back to where they yanked you. sam, at the thought of it, tightens his arms around her. pulls her just a little closer. ]

I know. [ because she's right - he doesn't understand. but he does feel for her, feels (maybe just a fraction) of her loss. of why this is as devastating as it is. but he can only keep going, keep holding her, keep letting her cry it out without doing it alone. he tries to anchor here, here. tries to keep his tight hold if only because it will make it harder for her to forget he's here. ] I know, beautiful. I'm sorry.

[ She doesn't pull back when he tugs her closer, just gasps and coughs, leans into him. What she does do is weep harder, louder, shake her head at him. And it is not an idle shaking -- it is a fervent, deliberate movement. An action.

Because of course, that's the exact problem. He doesn't know. She never told him the truth.

She sobs again and tries to catch her breath, still furiously shaking her head. She can barely see him, between her tears and her hair in her eyes. Her voice is almost unintelligible. ] No, you don't know, Sam! We're dead, Sam. All of us! It ain't Flagg, it ain't Trips, we can't go back 'cause we're dead!

[ Once she gets it out, she collapses against him, bawling. Lloyd not being here is Lloyd not existing at all. ]

Edited 2022-03-24 13:57 (UTC)

[ he's glad she doesn't pull away from him, if only because he's not sure he would let her go. could let her go. it's a kind of stubborn hold he has on her, one that lets her gasp and cough and shake her head, one that has her moving but not away.

when she starts talking, he has a vague idea of what to expect. settles himself for that expectation. except that what comes out of her mouth when she says it has him tensing, freezing to the spot, a cold chill down his spine. dead, she says. he can't help but think of tony, about what waits for them all when they leave. knowing that lloyd is dead is a solid mass in sam's chest that he almost can't breathe around - almost - because he has to.

julie collapses against him, and sam shifts them both, pulls her more against him. he can feel his own grief swelling somewhere in him, for lloyd and for julie and for nadine, but its manageable. it has to be, because his priority now is julie. ]

I'm sorry. [ he says again into her hair, letting her bawl against him. he's not rubbing circles into her shoulders so much anymore as he's keeping her tight against him.

there's so much he could say, but he knows none of it would matter. because what is there to say? that he won't let it happen? that they'll find a way to fix this? even the intention of them quiet in his chest before the words make it out. instead, he just keeps holding it, apologizing for something entirely out of his control, because she deserves to hear it from someone. ]

[ She doesn't move until she's completely sobbed out, until she can barely breathe and her stomach aches. Every part of her feels raw, inside and out, like an entire layer of skin was peeled away to leave her nerves unprotected against the world. Her face is buried against his shoulder, her hands fisted in his shirt.

It wasn't a secret she'd meant to keep from him. Her death was simply something so terrifying, so painful, that she preferred not to think of it at all, when possible. Sam is actually the first person she's ever told while sober; she'd been trashed when she told Geralt, way back at the cookout, and she was high as a kite on Halloween, when Susan had revealed herself as dead too, letting Julie open that door without having to relive it alone. Other than those two, the only ones who knew were Lloyd and Nadine themselves, and neither was any more eager to deal with it than she was. What was there to deal with? It simply is, there's no fixing or changing it.

Finally, her cries trail off, fade to hiccups and gulps. She can barely see, her head pounds -- this is the second breakdown she's had in as many days -- and she shakes from her very core, unable to stop. She feels both drained and filled with so many emotions, all of them varying degrees of negative, and the only clear thought she can come up with is how tired she suddenly feels. ]

[ sam settles in as julie cries, his arms around her all through it. as she sobs, he does keep offering quiet comments - things like i'm here and let it out and you're okay. he doesn't know if she hears him, but that doesn't matter, because he knows the bigger part of this is just letting her cry. letting everything she's been holding back out. sam's arms would be sore under normal circumstances, but be it his willpower alone or the magic of the horizon, they don't. honestly, he could sit there for hours longer, if she really needed it.

but he does hear when her sobs soften and then fade, her breathing a bit erratic as she tries to bring her body back under control. still, his hand rubs at her back. when she's calmed enough that sam thinks he'll actually hear her when he speaks, he hums softly against her. ]

My Nana used to say the best cure for headaches was ice cream. [ which...may or may not be true. it's hard to tell at this point. ] What d'you say?

[ She can hear his voice, even if the words themselves don't really get through. Most of her pain is something she holds incredibly close and silent: what she saw and smelled and dug through after Trips, her inability to even give her parents a proper burial. The isolation, the reality of what Flagg probably actually was, what she'd seen him do. Her actual recollection of her own death, the memories of that physical agony. The paralyzing fear of lightning she now has, only half-conquered by her ability to create and control tiny amounts of it. Her continued survival is largely reliant on ignoring it, drowning it all out, with liquor and drugs and sex and pounding music. Otherwise, she would not be able to function at all, would probably kill herself within days from inability to sleep or eat. Letting it all pour out is absolutely deafening in her head, muffles the noise that tries to get in.

But she can hear Sam's voice.

It takes her a minute to process what he says, make the gears turn in her brain. When she does, her voice is barely more than a croak, her capacity for movement limited to the barest nod of her head. ] Okay.

[ she does react to his voice, and that is what sam holds onto. because for all she's told him and for all he can piece together, he's never going to know exactly the depths of the pain she's facing. and he doesn't have to - not right now, not for this. instead, sam just keeps holding her, keeps helping her through each breath, and then when the sobbing settles enough for her to hear him. to breathe. to process.

but he does feel her nod in answer, does - somehow, underneath the sounds of the club and the music and everything else - hear her small okay. and so sam, moving only enough for one arm to come uncoiled from how tightly wound it had been around her, holds out his palm, flat. within a blink there is a bowl, though it could almost be a deep plate with edges, and a huge sundae inside. if it were any other moment, this might look almost comical, but sam didn't really put too much realism in his thoughts when conjuring the thing (thanks horizon), and instead pulls it close enough that julie can reach out for it if she wants to. ]

I always hated cherries on my sundaes. Made everything taste like medicine. [ and no, there are no cherries on this giant thing, but sam just feels like filling the space.

[ There's still a delay in her responses, like she has to translate everything he says before she can understand it. And, in a way, she does; she feels like she's in a different world and only hearing echoes that she has decipher.

He reaches out and she turns her head to watch, her face red and swollen, swiping at her cheeks with one hand. She's not sure why she's surprised at the almost-cartoonish appearance of the sundae, but it somehow seems like an appropriate dish for the moment. Something wild enough to break through.

She can't exactly say she has an appetite, but her throat is sore, so she takes one of the long-handled spoons, a bite of ice cream that does go down cold and soothing. She knows that, if she just thought it hard enough, she would reset entirely -- no scratchy throat, no tender eyes, no tightness in the skin on her cheeks. It feels like cheating Lloyd out of her pain, though, like he deserves for her to actually hold this hurt for just a little bit. ]

Maraschinos are like the Kardashians of fruit. [ It's mumbled, in between another bite of ice cream. ] Fake as fuck, but pretty and popular 'cause of it.

[ she can take as much time as she needs - sam is in no rush, has nowhere but here to be. that patience almost exudes from him. and yes, there is intention behind the sundae itself, how ridiculously large and over the top it seems.

he considers it a win when she reaches for the spoon and takes a bite. whether or not she needs a few extra moments to decide how to eat, or whatever it is she needs to work through to get there, doesn't matter nearly as much as the fact she does take another bite.

see? baby steps. sam snorts as he scoops out his own. ]

You'd think everyone would have figured it out by now, but sundaes and milkshakes are the only ones really holding on. [ because he hasn't fixed anything - there's nothing really to fix. loss is loss, and loss when you know the hell waiting for them... there's nothing that will make that easier. but he can sit right here, with julie, for however much longer she'll let him. maybe they won't move for the rest of the night. all he knows, for sure, is that she is responding to him now. is able to take a breath, able to not feel like she has to immediately pull it all back together.

none of this is going to be okay, but maybe she might. ]

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[ march / open ] you left me, you left me no choice but to stay here forever

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wrapping up mayhaps?