( semi-open ) though it may hurt today

[gradenine]

WHO: Roland (gradenine) & some of you guys
WHAT: July catchall + event
WHERE: Vaults, then some formalwear shop (get in losers we're going shopping)
WHEN: The rest of July
WARNINGS: Major Ruina and Leviathan spoilers in the first prompt. Death, murder, the usual Project Moon warnings apply, probably. Please refer to his opt-out for more info.




art credit | plotting comment | event log
hmu if you want a starter!

Comments

:)

[blattella]

[He doesn't recall seeing Roland around in the bank before now. Then again, all of that time spent poking and prodding and rifling for absolutely jack-shit doesn't seem real in the first place, with the way he's just been thrust back into the Smoke War yet again, the red, the red, the pieces everywhere of everyone else who can't regenerate, pieces of him, the flag, fluttering, and

Roland's screaming. Or just screamed. Hard to tell. Gregor blinks wetly, then tosses the flag across the vault as though it burns to touch. Wings, but they're both messes, on their knees just a few boxes apart. Roland's here.

Gregor better address him. Even if he's already sure that this won't end well in any capacity. Even if he's not sure that he can trust him fully, but damn it he wants to.]

........Hey. [Croaked out.] ...What'd your note say. With the-- whatever you got. Mine said something about sharing.

[but fuck that lmao!]

>:)

[gradenine]

[ in the midst of his mind palace falling apart, gregor's trembling voice manages to come through to him. roland blinks at the other man, vision already blurry with tears, and he swallows. bro don't you see he's fucking breaking down right now, come on. just give him a moment to recompose himself, breathe in and out as he holds back the urge to cry like a little kid because that's such a mood right now, haha!!

...the note lies at his feet. how convenient.

he picks it up to read it, but he's so stressed at trying to comprehend any form of word that he just shakily hands it over to greg instead.

it's the same one greg has. go figure. ]

<:J

[blattella]

[bitch you are BOTH freaking out, nothing's real in this bitch!

Sigh. Gregor's at least somewhat used to having his trauma yanked out and paraded around in front of him by now, so he's able to crawl his way on over to Roland and sling an arm around his shoulders. Not tight. Just. There.]

Got you, man. It's okay. We'll figure this out in a minute. [Even if he keeps shooting the discarded flags looks, between his wobbly attempts to be so useful, so helpful, such a good buddy friend pal.

Better to focus on Roland than on the flag. The stupid fucking teenager plastered on it, photoshopped to high hell, grotesque and handsome all in one. What's Roland holding? That's more interesting. What's that? The note's identical to his, but he can't peg what Roland's holding, and he can't ask if brother's freaking out.] Breathe in, hold, out. That's what all the quacks told me.

o_o

[gradenine]

[ see, the thing is that roland is also used to hanving his trauma yanked out and paraded in front of him! though the difference is that it's within the confines of the library, and with the librarian in question having first-row seats to whatever roland's breaking down over at the moment.

but this time, he is making a fool of himself in front of people he barely know. he wasn't even sure if gregor wanted to talk to him after the bullshit he pulled on the network. and yet here the man is, guiding roland through breathing exercises, and roland is reminded of how he'd taught malkuth to breathe in and out when the patron librarian was getting heated up over their circumstances after l corp collapsed in on itself.

he inhales, then exhales. inhale, exhale. he takes his time until his head's clear enough to make sense of what's going on here, and he looks down on the fabric he's tightly holding on for dear life. ah. ]

These gloves... They belonged to my wife.

[ he swallows. ]

She was killed by a Distortion.

(。_。)

[blattella]

[It is what it is on this bitch of an Earth. They're stuck together, and he's. He's really not sure how he feels still, about Roland, but it's not hate, not disgust. Just unease, and that's not enough to make him abandon the guy at such a low moment, is it?

So stupid breathing exercises it is, letting his ears stop ringing in turn, right up until Roland lays it all out on the line.]



...Scheiß.

[What else do you say? 'I'm sorry'? That's not fucking helpful right now, and Roland's probably heard enough of that anyway.

Time to sit back on his haunches and simply pull out two cigarettes.] This place is awful, dragging that out for you to relive. Here. [Take the fucking smoke or he'll have to smoke it himself. He'll do it. He'll smoke two at once. Don't push him.]

...Makes sense you were married. You seem like the sort who'd want to settle down one day.

[gradenine]

[ he... takes the smoke, but he doesn't make the motion of lighting it up. just holding something else that isn't just the gloves is helping a bit.

that remark, though. it takes roland out that he raises a brow in spite of his disheveled appearance. ]

The hell does that mean... I don't really need jokes right now, Greg. No one in the city is fit for marriage.

[ and yet he went and did it anyway. he snivels. ]

I wasn't with her when it happened. [ "No matter what happens, don’t blame yourself for all of it. You know it won’t be your fault." ] I'll always regret that.

[blattella]

No one's fit for it, but we still all fall in love and want it. Shut up.

[TELL HIM HE'S WRONG, BITCH. SHUT UP. DREAMS ARE ALLOWED!!!

But

man, yeah. He almost says something like 'what, so you could die together?', but....Well, yeah. He knows he'd want that, if it were him.]

You mind if I ask what killed her? [Because that's the interesting thing, in the City. How one dies, not that one died at all. And this is all so much better than having to share his own agony, though. Not like they're getting out until that happens. Suck shit, future Gregor!]

[gradenine]

Don't act like you know how it feels like to fall for someone...

[ has he??? is gregor been holding a candle for someone this entire time? that kind of gossip would be a nice distraction from roland's thankfully nonlethal breakdown, but alas.

he stops sniveling when gregor asks for specifics, though. there's that urge to tell him what truly killed her, but it's not like he was lying in the first place... still, it's oh so personal, and roland hates it when things get too personal. nobody in this vault would survive if he actually gets a meltdown, like in the library -- ]

Told you... It's an Abnormality. Remember the White Nights and Dark Days, and how all sorts of Distortions start cropping up from out of nowhere? It's during that.