[Fine time they're having here. Camille lets the gruel drip off the end of her spoon and plop back into the bowl. She looks across the refectory table to the only other soul in the building: a built blond boy with a model jawline and blond hair jutting out like tectonic aftermath, all sharp points and rigid shapes. He must pay a fortune on hair gel.]
I never used to mind oatmeal, but this is testing my limits.
[ the absolute tragedy that his hair is, unfortunately, all natural may push camille over the brink
he's not grabbing a ton of food and he does look uninterested in it, though after a beat where he is clearly taking a second to make sure he is being addressed (there is no one else here) he kind of shrugs ]
... I've had worse, but that says more about the rations than it does this slop.
I think it's to help break our spirits, probably. Or just practical economics. [She flips a lock of hair over her shoulder and puts her elbows on the table, mouth quirked in half a smile.] Give the prisoners the worst cuts and the leftovers. Pity — in some places sacrifices get primped and pampered before they're offed.
Dunno. Nothing about this place screams practical.
[ he is voting for breaking spirits. speaking of which: ]
Maybe their... whatever doesn't like its victims getting the special treatment. [ shrugs a shoulder ] Least it gave us a head start in expecting the worst.
Whatever Camille just full body flinches, looking away. She coughs to a point where she thinks she may throw up. Or has an urge to throw up that turns into a cough. Hard to say which at this point.]
[ well someone has said they were not used to seeing Things like, idk, people losing their fingers, so when he spots camille in Wherever We Are cloud hesitates for a second before: ]
[Me shaking seeing your above starter HOW DID I LOSE THAT??? ZIA I'M SORRY]
She's just a kid. [Camille is at the pyre, bent in half with elbows on her knees, hands crooked into her scalp.] They sent her in there with a fucking shovel. And Erin...
[God. At least she had more faculties left to her than Boothill did.]
[ IT'S OKAY... IT HAPPENS... I DID THE SAME THING TO YAYWON THIS WEEK..... ]
... I asked last week. Those weapons are part of the magic of this place playing with the ritual, or something. [ he is not a ritual expert. ] It's not gonna get any better for whoever gets stuck in this.
Yeah, I saw the pentagrams. [The utterly inept marks of the devil. She scoffs, shaking her head.] Any self-respecting god ought to smite a cultist who can't get an even five-point-star down.
For all we know, it's that thing's actual symbol, and that's why every ritual related to it is like this. [ awful. terrible. etc. he shakes his head ] Just glad Erin didn't get a chainsaw.
For those who need a name, there's a gift basket of medical terms. All I know is that cutting made me feel safe. It was proof. Thoughts and words, captured where I could see them and track them. The truth, stinging, on my skin, in a freakish shorthand. Tell me you're going to the doctor, and I'll want to cut worrisome on my arm. Say you've fallen in love and I buzz the outlines of tragic over my breast. I hadn't necessarily wanted to be cured. But I was out of places to write, slicing myself between my toes— bad, cry — like a junkie looking for one last vein. Vanish did it for me. I'd saved the neck, such a nice prime spot, for one final good cutting. Then I turned myself in. I stayed at the hospital twelve weeks. It's a special place for people who cut, almost all of them women, most under twenty-five. I went when I was thirty. Just six months out. Delicate times.
Curry came to visit once, brought yellow roses. They chiseled off all the thorns before he was allowed into the reception room, deposited the shards in plastic containers—Curry said they looked like prescription bottles—which they locked way until the trash pickup came. We sat in the dayroom, all rounded edges and plush couches, and as we talked about the paper and his wife and the latest news in Chicago, I scanned his body for anything sharp. A belt buckle, a safety pin, a watch fob.
"I'm so sorry, my girl," he said at the end of his visit, and I could tell he meant it because his voice sounded wet.
When he left I was so sick I vomited in the bathroom, and as I was vomiting, I noticed the rubber-covered screws at the back of the toilet. I pried the cap off one and sanded the palm of my hand—I—until orderlies hauled me out, blood spurting from the wound like stigmata.
My roommate killed herself later that week. Not by cutting, which was, of course, the irony. She swallowed a bottle of Windex a janitor left out. She was sixteen, a former cheerleader who cut herself above the thigh so no one would notice. Her parents glared at me when they came to pick up her things.
They always call depression the blues, but I would have been happy to waken to a periwinkle outlook. Depression to me is urine yellow. Washed out, exhausted miles of weak piss.
The nurses gave us meds to alleviate our tingling skins. And more meds to soothe our burning brains. We were body searched twice weekly for any sharp objects, and sat in groups together purging ourselves, theoretically, of anger and self-hatred. We learned not to turn on ourselves. We learned to blame. After a month of good behaviour, we earned silky baths and massages. We were taught the goodness of touch.
My only other visitor was my mother, who I hadn't seen in half a decade. She smelled of purple flowers and wore a jangling charm bracelet I coveted as a child. When we were alone, she talked about the foliage and some new town rule that required Christmas lights to be taken down by January 15. When my doctors joined us, she cried and petted and fretted at me. She stroked my hair and wondered why I had done this to myself.
Then, inevitably, came the stories of Marian. She'd already lost one child, you see. It had nearly killed her. Why would the older (though necessarily less beloved) deliberately harm herself? I was so different from her lost girl, who—think of it—would be almost thirty had she lived. Marian embraced life, what she had been spared. Lord, she had soaked up the world—remember, Camille, how she laughed even in the hospital?
I hated to point out to my mother that such was the nature of a bewildered, expiring ten-year-old. Why bother? It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wished I could stop trying.
there's nothing to say to a reveal like that, cloud thinks, especially against camille's wishes (thanks shadows!!), and that's part of why he doesn't say anything after. it's also part of why he's looking away. ]
... When d'you get out? [ of the facility, if she even had. maybe even that is too much to ask. something about being locked away in a place with doctors makes him uncomfortable, though these were trying to help. probably. ]
Camille is left to stew in the residue of her own filth. He's kind enough to not make moon eyes at her. She hates the idea of being pitied. Hates being seen even more still.
She inhales thickly through her nose, eyes trained on the hem she's been picking out at her sleeve. Her scars scream to her from beneath. Vanish. Vanish. Vanish.]
Not long after. [She clears her throat and swings her hair over her shoulder. Meeting his eyes head on.] I checked out after three months. Moved on up and out.
[Most people can sound better on paper. She thinks he's sort of the opposite — terse as he is in conversation, his charms read better with audio and visuals than anything he put to writing.]
Honestly, if that's the biggest hit I took today, I'm calling it a win. [She even smiles, chuckling under her breath.] Don't worry about it. I got a boost for the fight. Healing magic. You couldn't have kept me down for long anyway.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
WEEK 0: Monday
I never used to mind oatmeal, but this is testing my limits.
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he's not grabbing a ton of food and he does look uninterested in it, though after a beat where he is clearly taking a second to make sure he is being addressed (there is no one else here) he kind of shrugs ]
... I've had worse, but that says more about the rations than it does this slop.
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I think it's to help break our spirits, probably. Or just practical economics. [She flips a lock of hair over her shoulder and puts her elbows on the table, mouth quirked in half a smile.] Give the prisoners the worst cuts and the leftovers. Pity — in some places sacrifices get primped and pampered before they're offed.
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[ he is voting for breaking spirits. speaking of which: ]
Maybe their... whatever doesn't like its victims getting the special treatment. [ shrugs a shoulder ] Least it gave us a head start in expecting the worst.
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week 0, friday
You alright? [ checking in on her after their. mess. they can be at the noticeboard to know the lore too idk ]
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I'm good, I'm just... [Trails off, staring into the distance.] It really was a hand? You're positive?
[also she's sopping wet and leech-bitten everywhere.]
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...
awkwardly lifts it up ]
Pretty sure.
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Whatever Camille just full body flinches, looking away. She coughs to a point where she thinks she may throw up. Or has an urge to throw up that turns into a cough. Hard to say which at this point.]
Okay, okay put it away.
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week 0, sunday
You holding up alright?
WEEK 1: Sunday
She's just a kid. [Camille is at the pyre, bent in half with elbows on her knees, hands crooked into her scalp.] They sent her in there with a fucking shovel. And Erin...
[God. At least she had more faculties left to her than Boothill did.]
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... I asked last week. Those weapons are part of the magic of this place playing with the ritual, or something. [ he is not a ritual expert. ] It's not gonna get any better for whoever gets stuck in this.
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Yeah, I saw the pentagrams. [The utterly inept marks of the devil. She scoffs, shaking her head.] Any self-respecting god ought to smite a cultist who can't get an even five-point-star down.
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WEEK 2: Monday (1/2)
WHOOOoooOOOAOOoaaAAAA]
(2/2) ((SPOILERS, CW: self harm, suicide, dead children, rehab, mental health, gore))
Curry came to visit once, brought yellow roses. They chiseled off all the thorns before he was allowed into the reception room, deposited the shards in plastic containers—Curry said they looked like prescription bottles—which they locked way until the trash pickup came. We sat in the dayroom, all rounded edges and plush couches, and as we talked about the paper and his wife and the latest news in Chicago, I scanned his body for anything sharp. A belt buckle, a safety pin, a watch fob.
"I'm so sorry, my girl," he said at the end of his visit, and I could tell he meant it because his voice sounded wet.
When he left I was so sick I vomited in the bathroom, and as I was vomiting, I noticed the rubber-covered screws at the back of the toilet. I pried the cap off one and sanded the palm of my hand—I—until orderlies hauled me out, blood spurting from the wound like stigmata.
My roommate killed herself later that week. Not by cutting, which was, of course, the irony. She swallowed a bottle of Windex a janitor left out. She was sixteen, a former cheerleader who cut herself above the thigh so no one would notice. Her parents glared at me when they came to pick up her things.
They always call depression the blues, but I would have been happy to waken to a periwinkle outlook. Depression to me is urine yellow. Washed out, exhausted miles of weak piss.
The nurses gave us meds to alleviate our tingling skins. And more meds to soothe our burning brains. We were body searched twice weekly for any sharp objects, and sat in groups together purging ourselves, theoretically, of anger and self-hatred. We learned not to turn on ourselves. We learned to blame. After a month of good behaviour, we earned silky baths and massages. We were taught the goodness of touch.
My only other visitor was my mother, who I hadn't seen in half a decade. She smelled of purple flowers and wore a jangling charm bracelet I coveted as a child. When we were alone, she talked about the foliage and some new town rule that required Christmas lights to be taken down by January 15. When my doctors joined us, she cried and petted and fretted at me. She stroked my hair and wondered why I had done this to myself.
Then, inevitably, came the stories of Marian. She'd already lost one child, you see. It had nearly killed her. Why would the older (though necessarily less beloved) deliberately harm herself? I was so different from her lost girl, who—think of it—would be almost thirty had she lived. Marian embraced life, what she had been spared. Lord, she had soaked up the world—remember, Camille, how she laughed even in the hospital?
I hated to point out to my mother that such was the nature of a bewildered, expiring ten-year-old. Why bother? It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wished I could stop trying.
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there's nothing to say to a reveal like that, cloud thinks, especially against camille's wishes (thanks shadows!!), and that's part of why he doesn't say anything after. it's also part of why he's looking away. ]
... When d'you get out? [ of the facility, if she even had. maybe even that is too much to ask. something about being locked away in a place with doctors makes him uncomfortable, though these were trying to help. probably. ]
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Camille is left to stew in the residue of her own filth. He's kind enough to not make moon eyes at her. She hates the idea of being pitied. Hates being seen even more still.
She inhales thickly through her nose, eyes trained on the hem she's been picking out at her sleeve. Her scars scream to her from beneath. Vanish. Vanish. Vanish.]
Not long after. [She clears her throat and swings her hair over her shoulder. Meeting his eyes head on.] I checked out after three months. Moved on up and out.
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WEEK 6: Wednesday
It's good to see you back on this end. Or most of you, anyway.
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Yeah. Can't say I'd missed the sights, but it's easier to talk like this.
[ sort of. ]
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[Most people can sound better on paper. She thinks he's sort of the opposite — terse as he is in conversation, his charms read better with audio and visuals than anything he put to writing.]
...You get a hold of Yuffie?
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[ he is doing his best... in writing.... ]
Yeah. She would've found me even if I'd been trying to dodge her.
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week 7, saturday
... Sorry for making Karlach crush you earlier.
[ his BOWLING FOR SOUP moment ]
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Honestly, if that's the biggest hit I took today, I'm calling it a win. [She even smiles, chuckling under her breath.] Don't worry about it. I got a boost for the fight. Healing magic. You couldn't have kept me down for long anyway.
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That was your first taste of real healing magic without all the shitty side effects, right? [ their SWAMP... ]
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[There's a beat.]
Ichiban actually used his monster power on me, the week he died. He was the unicorn — came with a free heal a week, or something to that effect.
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