[cyclebcrn]

MOVED TO @priscnblues !!

[cyclebcrn]

[ bitch

[hallowgrieves-deactivated202201]

Actor Mark: How did that one old saying go with dogs?

Yancy: It’s never, uh, an old, you can teach an old dog, uh, you can’t, you can’t teach, you can? You can always train a dog, no matter what age!

[cyclebcrn]

[ like this for memes I missed ! Yamc

[cyclebcrn]

yancy has learned not to keep track of all that seemed ... wrong. it could drive a man insane , keeping tabs on every little backwards thing in here - how a beautiful night turned cold on a dime , goosebumps prickling his bare arms , or the flashes of color that stain behind his eyes. reluctantly, yancy hauls himself to his feet , legs already gone to jello at the mere thought of going back in the hole - he stumbles , almost catches himself on the warden’s arm , but thinks better of it. better to fall. you don’t touch the warden. you don’t eat what fae present you. 

“ i’ll do anything else , “ he whispers, and he means it. “ i - i know i messed up, and o’course it’s your say , i’d - i’d never tell youse what t’do , but i swear , anything else...” 

his mind doesn’t agree with the hole. any inmate will tell you how easy it is to slip away from yourself in there , but orson is too easy , he supposes. the monotony of a never ending life , staring at the same concrete ceiling , the same tally marks littering the walls. it will kill him. he feels it. 

[cyclebcrn]

“ you might as well have ! “ match , meet gasoline. if yancy knew even the slighest bit of his place in the world , perhaps he wouldn’t have been so defensive , coiled and sprung with the easiest touch. what marcus had , yancy could only imagine - he may have suffered , and killed and been killed and risen again. he may have felt the cold knife of loss more than once , may have been scorn and spat on , but it was all real , wasn’t it ? yancy didn’t even have that. he had memories that matched dreamscape faces. he had felt blood on his hands that wasn’t real enough to wash away. 

as terrible as the things yancy had done were , he wished he’d still done them. he wished he’d been alive , even for a minute. maybe then he would’ve known better. 

ink and insults rain down upon him , and yancy flinches , full bodied and afraid. marcus’ movements don’t help , and he eyes him suspiciously , lip curled in a feral sneer - a street mutt doesn’t strike unless it is cornered , and not without it’s tail tucked between trembling legs. yancy isn’t a mutt , but the tremor shared between the men is violent and unforgiving. 

“ there’s no such thing as living , just not dead , “ he whispers , almost humored by his own words. he’d only ever lived in the absence , the haze of nothing that marcus spoke so fondly of. how could he have ever felt anything if he wasn’t alive to feel? his tongue darts out nervously , licking his lips, the sneer melting into a grimace when the taste of ink hits him. with jerky movements , yancy finally makes use of the tissue in his palm - at this point , it does little more than smear it , but it’s something. “ they always talk about babies being strong in fairy tales. pure of heart , or uncorruptable , or something. but it still got me. “ 

[cyclebcrn]

celine. orson’s own chest grips cold in the wake of what he knows, and he doesn’t. more flashes of poetry flitter behind half-lidded eyes , too rich for his blood - your name is a golden bell hung in my heart ; it would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name. he doesn’t like thinking about what might have been , and when asked for the axe , yancy only clutches it harder - like a child , desperate for some creature comfort.

“ ... my ma. “ he says at length , too scared to search damien’s eyes for recognition. celine. she had been called emily , or maria , or christine , or whore , but her eyes had remained the same in his dreams : full of rage. full of loss. names were important , orson decided , the first firm thought of his own in a long time. he had his , and he had his mothers. it was important to have the right names for things. “ and ... and yeah. a break. monotony’s a bitch. “

before the conversation can continue ( and before yancy can note the horrible shade damien’s face has taken ) , his friend ( his uncle ) is doubled. his movements are slow and easy , setting down the axe and taking a careful step or two towards him. “ hey. hey , man , take it easy. you alright ? “ 

[cyclebcrn]

[ relationship ended with bord.rlands, yancy is my new baby

[cyclebcrn]

it was hard to comprehend exactly what he was feeling. like a waterlogged photo album , things got blurrier the farther back he went. he could remember having breakfast that morning , but nothing about getting up and dressed. he knew he had parents , but their names and faces escaped him. he was in jail , but only god could tell you what for or how much more time he had to do. things were missing , clearly , but the quantity and quality was a mystery to him - what if he forgot something important ? what if he was busted for murder ? god , he didn’t think he could live with himself ...  hunched forward as he was , the injuries were a little more managable. the rush of blood to his head made it pound all the more harder , but he could deal with it - at least there was less pressure on his ribs ; it’s kinda hard to stay alert when you can’t very well breathe , isn’t it ?

despite the new ease in breathing , air still caught in his throat the second yancy let the b-word slip. in every memory orson ran through his mind , there had been a they - but they could be anybody , right ? almost everything that came to mind had some mysterious unnamed shadow in it , clogging up his personal space , but their name or title or gender was far out of his grasp. even now , fitting in the new pieces that have been offered to him , a brother didn’t feel quite right - everything was fuzzy at the edges , he couldn’t ... he couldn’t make a solid decision right now , could he ? 

orson looked him up and down with a blank stare , confusion leaking into his eyes despite his best attempts. something pulls at the back of his lucidity , an uncomfortable need to make sure he was okay , but it didn’t feel right to follow up with it. “ ... yeah. yeah , sure , i - .... i’m .. sorry , man. “ 

[cyclebcrn]

he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in so much pain. to be fair , he ... couldn’t remember much at the moment , the past coming back to him in drips and drabs. the riot. it was the foremost thing on his mind , besides the aches that slowly consumed the majority of his trembling frame. he’d been trying to get somewhere , or to someone , and he recalled wading through the crowd - he’d hit the ground , caught someone elses foot in the gut , couldn’t catch his breath enough to get somewhere safe. 

but what had he been doing before that ? it might’ve been rec hour , or lunch ... no , rec hour , because he remembered someone getting pissed about the lack of pieces in a puzzle. he’d been reading ... something about cars , maybe ? cars , or .. 

the man to his side finally spoke , and in spite of his best efforts , orson groaned. his voice cut through him like a hot knife through butter , booming against what he thought was the loud background noise. god , his head was killing him ... when he sucked in a breath to compose himself , he found that his chest didn’t fare any better. choking on air , he coughed wetly into the hand still at his face , one arm clutched tight around his ribs. pain and pressure just aggravated the nausea again ,  disgustingly clutched to the back of his throat ; like a russian doll , one symptom just opened up another , until he was a dizzy , pale-faced mess , desperate for relief but well aware it wasn’t coming. prison hospitals were as stingy with the good drugs as the bastards they used to deal with outside were. 

... they ? yeah , it ... it was a ‘they’. ‘they’ used to work for ... something. drips and drabs. hell , the date was fuzzy , let alone what he did years ago. 

“ don’t bother , “ he rasped , blearily giving the man at his side a once-over. didn’t he used to wear glasses ? figures , they probably got broke in all the mess. “ ... why ain’t you in a bed ? look as shitty as i feel , man .. “ 

[cyclebcrn]

[ tag / verse update:

ending III. yancy survives his birth. WKM never happens. basically a “ give him the childhood he deserved “ verse.

alternate ending I. standard twin au with @/theauthorlives’ yancy. follows their storyline , basically “ what if there were two of them “. 

[cyclebcrn]

▌▌ YOU’RE SAFE NOW / @theauthorlives​

          IT DIDN’T FEEL that way. 

          the last thing orson really remembered was ... shit , what did he remember ? he remembered that he was in prison , and that something bad had happened - was there a riot ? his ribs felt hot and bruised , and his stomach ached , and his head was fit to burst wide open. there was a riot , but every face in that crowd was blank and fuzzy. he’d been knocked over , and he’d tried to protect his head , but there was too much going on ... 

          orson sat up slowly. the faded white of the medical unit swirled around him and he buried his face in his hands , wishing he could sink back into the deep quiet black. there was too much - beeps and whirs of equipment , the musty alcoholic scent of hand sanitizer and cheap linens. his stomach rolled and lurched , seasick on land - he managed to keep his composure , but barely , pale and sweating and shaking all over. 

          at length , he forced himself to focus on the stranger to his side . the voice was familiar in spite of all the background noise , he just - ... couldn’t place it. “ .... they stop it ? we still on lockdown ... ? “ 

[jettbian]

Visit Original Link

[cyclebcrn]

▌▌ YOU’RE SAFE NOW / @untrustwcrthy-fcrtuneteller​​

          WAS HE ? 

          he didn’t ... really know. didn’t know much of anything , to be fair , not just the identity of the woman who had him so gingerly by the arm. the doctors had told him several times that it was a concussion ( which would explain the neat row of stitches to the back of his skull ) , that he’d start to remember soon , he just needed to take it easy. of course he hadn’t forgotten everything - the important stuff never went away - but the faces and voices that crowded him in his memories were blurry and piecemeal. even though they told him , he didn’t really know.

          they said she was a friend. that she’d make sure he got home okay. they couldn’t salvege his jacket from all the blood down the back of it , but his wallet and keys were ziplocked and held tight in his grip. unlike the lady leading him down the front steps of raspy hill’s only hospital , these items were familiar. they gave him comfort. 

          “ you don’t - ... you don’t gotta hold onto me like that. i can walk okay. “ 

[cyclebcrn]

any idiot would know enough to quit while they’re ahead , but there is an anger brewing in yancy’s veins that is as unexpected as the sudden shift of the actor’s palor. he’d wanted redemption , in a way - comfort , even. he wanted to hear from a man who’d suffered like yancy had that maybe , it ... it wasn’t his fault. 

the darkness wanted , it took. it didn’t matter how strong his willpower was , it warped and bent and shaped until you belonged to it. 

according to him , the dark just was. he’d wanted a home , he’d built one inside it’s maw. it was all his doing , wasn’t it ?  yancy stared at the few stray droplets of ink that had found their way to the back of his hand , watched it web and pool against his skin with a blank , miserable expression. anxiety was thick inside the room , and yancy felt his rage burn out to match soon enough. the room swam , his hands shook , but he forced himself to stay present. “ ... there’s no point , then , is there ? “ 

[cyclebcrn]

          IN ANY VERSE , yancy is somewhere around 17 weeks premature ( on the severely premature side of things ) , and as such feels the impact even as an adult. for most of his childhood he was usually just lumped in the class of “sickly” - he was born at a whopping 1.9 lbs and had trouble putting on weight since then , was asthmatic , had a very low immune system , and was a late bloomer as far as milestones went. though he “grew out” of the asthma by his early tweens , he never could put on weight ( or height for that matter ) , and he developed anemia and issues with his eyesight. he’s still the first to catch any bug or flu going around , and is actually very clean because of it - showers daily , washes his hands frequently , wipes down shared equipment before use , etc.            of course , as his childhood varies between resets , all his symptoms are prone to be worse. there’s lifetimes where he’s died in the trial process because of his poor health , or ones where neglect or abuse led to him having permenant damage he otherwise wouldn’t have had. there’s lifetimes where he was blind , where he was on a feeding tube , where he was illiterate , where most of it was spent in a bubble. he doesn’t remember any of them , thankfully enough , but they have happened. the only information you really need to worry about is in the first parargaph. 

[lvckyflannel-a-deactivated20231]

              “ I’m telling you right off the bat, I have a heart issue – and it’s not something I know how to deal with still, so I’m sorry that I might be a little slow on things. ”

@cyclebcrn​

[cyclebcrn]

though yancy’s trying to keep the vaguely uncomfortable expression off his face , it’s ... not entirely working. whatever. if it’s sharing time , it’s sharing time. “ ... i , uh , was a real early baby. still got some complications , so ... i got you. “