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@graband-end
PSA
This blog is officially ARCHIVED. It'll still be around for former threads, drabbles, headcanons, etc. but the blog itself will have no IC interaction from this point forward. All interaction set in this timeline will be over on disintegrativeruin in a specific verse.
( he looks up, the set of his brow harsh by default.
she’s a surprise. he sits back, gesturing her in. )
What about?
[ she lingers in the doorway a moment longer than she should. it doesn't feel right, being here; there's a part of her that feels like she's going behind the professor's back, somehow, betraying something that isn't even really there.
(she thinks, belatedly, that she is making too much of this. it could just be a conversation, nothing more.) ]
What you do.
[ it's the wrong way to phrase it. ]
I mean, not just you. [ she stumbles over whether to call him magneto or erik or mr. lehnsherr and decides that maybe it's better if she doesn't call him anything at all. ] The entire Brotherhood.
[ the rap of her knuckles against the doorframe is quiet, hesitant. she doesn't know what she's doing there at all, but determination roots her in place, prevents her from backing out of this. ]
-- can I talk to you?
Are you using this?
i want to write training things
I kind of love her, maybe a lot.
you don't like to be touched (let alone kissed)
[ The way her voice cracks, loud and sharp and (perhaps) unintentionally emotional feels like a kick in the gut. But at least she’s looking at him now, at least he can talk to her face, and at least he’s got a better shot at trying to read her. ]
I would have suggested Erik.
[ He wanted to suggested Charles, he did, he did, but—for all the things the Professor knows, and can know—Erik will always seem to understand the three four of them more completely. Erik wears evidence on his skin, does not gloss over painful truths when they need to be plunged into and explored. ]
Erik, or— Or me, yeah.
[ As much as Erik understands the whole, Josh understands the more specific details. ]
And that’s probably what you were coming to do, and I’m a selfish asshole who shouldn’t have yelled at you. So we can talk now, if you want.
Or we—[ he hesitates, trying to think of a distraction they’d both enjoy, or even one more catered to her ]—could train each other or… Look, whatever you want to do, seriously whatever it is that might help, you should do it. We could do it.
I don't want to talk to Erik.
[ Maybe she should. Maybe it would help. Maybe it would be better, somehow, to tell someone other than Josh.
(She's wary of Erik, if she's honest. Not because of anything he's done, but because of how she looks at him; he's not as open as the Professor, even if he does seem like he'd understand the best out of any of them.)
She's arguing for the sake of it, she realizes. She's still angry with him but it's muted, subdued; she swallows it down and lets it burn in the pit of her stomach. It won't do anything for either of them -- it's the two of them now, it seems, and Josephine doesn't want to sever that tie if it's the only one she has left.
It still doesn't motivate her to do anything other than stand her ground. She doesn't disagree with him -- doesn't know if he expects her to, but she won't -- and she doesn't make a move to come any closer. ]
It's fine.
[ It's the only thing she gives, a feeble attempt at smoothing things over. She barely bites back 'you were an asshole,' and that seems like victory enough.
Josephine studies him, chewing on her bottom lip. ]
We can just -- [ she doesn't want to train, she doesn't want to talk about Giselle being gone, she doesn't want to talk about the pair of them being alone in the mansion again even though they aren't, she doesn't want to talk about any of it, even if they will stumble into it someway or another. ]
-- let's get out of the house for a little while.
[ With tired eyes, Anayanci looks on the the young blonde woman and worries the edge of the now well-worn photograph of Joshua. It’s faded tremendously in the time she’s been looking for him, from being slipped in and out of the little leather pocket in her purse so frequently.
She’s supposed to be out getting breakfast for Ricardo—she’s left him to sleep in back at the motel—but this young lady looks about Josh’s age and she can’t help but want to ask. ]
Miss?
[ As she approaches, she holds the photo so it can’t be seen just yet, like she’s hiding her cards. It’s gotten to the point where she almost has to draw upon her courage to show the photo. So many false leads and so many let downs have worn on her, but still she marches on. ]
I’m looking for my son. He’s about your age, and if you had any information, anything—
[ Slowly, almost reverently, she shares the photograph with the blonde. It’s the most recent one she has with proper focus. ]
This is from a while ago, and he’s— changed a bit, but maybe you recognize him?
His name is Joshua.
[ She is twenty-three years old and she has been living in New York City for a month and a half. She is twenty-three years old and she has, once again, left the people she knows behind -- not without a goodbye, not with only a letter on the nightstand and clothes missing from her closet, though it doesn't sting any less because of it. The city is unfamiliar to her, frightening in a way that could be exciting if she were any other person living any other life. As it stands, she is still all wide eyes and shaking hands and phone calls to Caleb from payphone booths when she gets lost in the maze of streets.
Westchester had seemed large to her until it was suddenly too small; she wonders if this place will lose its vastness soon, too.
It's early morning when the door opens and someone walks in. Josephine is new to this job, too, this sense of responsibility; years ago she would've hated this, stuck in a place just like her mother, but now she clings to it with hopeful fingers because of the independence it offers. She is not on her feet just yet -- she is still sleeping on Caleb's couch and promising that she will pay him back somehow even though he smiles and puts his arm around her shoulders and tells her not to worry about it. The woman who walks up to her looks tired, like she has been drained of everything, like she's lost something.
Josephine's eyes drop to what she is holding in her hands and there is a moment, however brief, of panic. Being on her own in an unfamiliar world has only made her more cautious. Her hand on the coffee pot is tight, knuckles stretched thin and white, and she is half-tempted to step away from the woman before she ever has a chance to speak to her. ]
Oh, I don't --
[ Before she has a chance to back away, the woman is showing her a photograph and Josephine's heart leaps into her throat.
Josh --
Josh --
J o s h .
With shaking hands, she puts the coffee pot down before she has a chance to drop it. For a long, long moment, Josephine has no idea what to say as her mind stumbles over the face in the photograph, as familiar as it isn't, a boy she didn't have a chance to know. ]
[ She thinks that maybe she ought to lie to protect him because there is no way of knowing that this is his mother, his real mother, but when she looks at her Josephine wants to believe it with everything she has.
Before she can catch herself, the words come stumbling out. ]
I -- I know him.
you don't like to be touched (let alone kissed)
[ He takes exactly three quick steps toward her before his confidence wanes, fading away into nothing. Because she won’t turn back, she won’t look at him. She’d come to him, caring about him or needing him, and he’d gone and put up another wall between them in a single thoughtless slip. ]
Josephine, please.
[ His plea dies on his lips before he gets too far; he knows he doesn’t deserve to ask her to turn around for his own sake. ]
If you need something, I…
[ Selflessness seems strangely foreign on his tongue after the past few days, and it makes him clumsy with his words. ]
Let me—
[ Still his focus is more on himself than on her.
Let me help. I could do something for you.
He tries again, finding a bit more success. Even if he’s projecting himself onto her, he means what he says. ]
You should talk to someone. About this, you know. It sucks and you shouldn’t have to do it alone.
[ There is a part of her -- larger than it should be, larger than she wants it to be -- that wants to turn around. He says Josephine please and it doesn't matter why or how he's saying it; it doesn't matter that she is still angry with him, still hurt, at his sudden, prickling hostility. She wants to turn around and face him because she needs him, still. There is a certain amount of shame that comes with that, too, a certain flavor of self-loathing that she will keep wrapped tight and held to her a chest, another secret among secrets, something she won't tell him or anyone else. Giselle hadn't needed anyone and Josh doesn't seem to need anyone but Giselle and Kes hadn't needed anyone either and it burns her to know that she is suddenly the only one who needs someone who is simply not there.
Josephine stands her ground, stubbornly resolute. She refuses to give Josh the satisfaction of knowing that she is only looking to him because he's asked her to, even if he hasn't said anything at all. When he stops, she's placated by the silence -- good, she thinks, more bitter than she's used to where Josh is concerned.
But he speaks again and suddenly all she wants to do is tell him to be quiet, to stop talking, to stop trying to make things better when they aren't, when they won't be, why can't he see it. She wants to walk away and do what he has spent the past three days doing; she wants to slam her door and lock it tight and not answer no matter who stands on the other side knocking.
(Suddenly, she hates it here. She hates the mansion and the opulence of it; the way it seems like just another glittering, ornate cage. She hates the way she has found so little peace in staying here; that even when she does, it's tainted again, stained with dirty fingers.)
She does turn then, but she doesn't move any closer to him. ]
I should talk to someone?
[ Her voice cracks, a sharp break. There's a part of her that knows that Josh means well in some half-selfish, stumbling way but it matters so little.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, after all. ]
Who should I talk to, Josh? The Professor? Magneto? Luz or Raven or -- you?
[ Each name comes out bitter, like there's a foul taste in her mouth. ]
You're right -- it sucks. It's shit and I hate it --
[ She walks forward, two quick steps. Her voice loses its bite; the sharp edges are softened, made weaker. ]
-- and I'm trying, Josh, I really am. But I'm tired of trying for things that just seem so fucking hopeless.
you don't like to be touched (let alone kissed)
[ Giselle leaves, just as he’d hoped she wouldn’t; just as he hoped she’d had enough trying to fly far from them.
It isn’t any easier, this time around, even with the surprise of it dulled and chipped, because in it’s place more anger and sadness pool; more almost-jealousy and all-out betrayal thrums beneath his skin. She makes it look easy, leaving even the two of them behind without so much as a warning, let alone a goodbye.
The inadequacy he feels as a result of it all burns both hot and cold in his veins. Caught up in this destructive pattern of thought, he sees no reason to even leave his room, and he stays there for days, as unmoving as his skin would suggest.
It’s a startling break in the silence of that wing of the mansion when Josephine knocks, and disappoint floods over him as the only bird he’d heard sing in those three days flies from his windowsill; flies from the both of them. ]
Go away, Josephine.
[ At that, his head drops back to knock against the wall. The words had felt like acid as they were spoken, and they still burn the back of his throat and coat his tongue now.
He can’t do this. He can’t shut her out because he needs her now, because despite past discrepancies, they are in this together; it’s one more thing that makes them more alike than they are different.
Hastily, he clamors out of bed and yanks open the door before she has a chance to get too far. ]
I didn’t mean it.
—I’m sorry.
[ She doesn't know what she was expecting, but the anger in his voice, the hostility, certainly isn't it. The venom of it strikes her harder than she expects and it's like a slap, almost, sharp and biting. Josephine wants to be angry with him -- she should be angry with him, maybe, for how he is acting -- but she isn't. She isn't and she's angry at herself for it instead because it's hurt that leaks into her face when she looks at his closed door; it's hurt that sends her stepping back once, twice, quick steps between the two of them.
Her face burns with shame when she turns on her heel and she doesn't say anything at all, doesn't even let him know that she's heard although she's certain that he knows she has. All she wants to do is put as much distance as she can between herself and Josh and for a moment, one brief, fleeting instant, she is envious of Giselle because Giselle is free and gone and she isn't left with the mess she's created in her wake.
Arms crossed tightly over her chest, Josephine walks down the hall away from Josh's bedroom and she is nearly at the corner when she hears the door open and someone step out. She is tempted to keep going -- it is what he deserves -- but she slows, stops.
She doesn't turn around to look at him.
(It doesn't seem fair to her suddenly that she is always the one on the opposite side of the door. It doesn't seem fair that she is always the one trying, always the one wanting to piece things back together when they are so broken. It doesn't seem fair that they are hardly any better than they were before, the first time; it's as if nothing has changed at all.
It doesn't seem fair and Josephine is so, so tired.) ]
I don't care if you meant it or not.
[ Her back is still to him and she wears their sudden distance like armor. ]
you don't like to be touched (let alone kissed)
[ Giselle leaves, predictably.
She is angry the first day -- furious in her grief, her loss; she cries at Josh, cries that it isn't fair for Giselle to do this, to act as though they are nothing, people she can simply leave behind. She wakes up still fully dressed, lying on top of her bed with a blanket haphazardly thrown over her; when she looks up, she finds Josh asleep sitting up, his back against the door. As much as she wants to be angry, as much as she tries, it all leaves her, empties her out and leaves her hollow instead. The hurt comes next, smothering everything else; she doesn't understand (will never understand, not for years), how Giselle could simply leave in the middle of the night without a word to either of them.
It's the longest she's been gone, and Josephine is no longer angry, no longer hurt. She's simply tired -- there is nothing that wears a person out, she's realized, quite like caring for someone you perhaps aren't meant to.
Josephine keeps to herself most days, resolute in her own forced isolation; if there are people who are going to leave, she wants to be able to let them.
It's harder than she would like for it to be. When three days pass and she still hasn't caught sight of Josh, she decides that maybe, maybe it's all right to seek him out.
She raises a hand and knocks on the door twice, quietly. ]
Josh?
Josephine. [ It’s a pleasant departure from the screwball magic names he hears daily. ] Hi.
Don’t remember.
[ He remembers full well, and so will Professor Flitwick, but if leaving out that important piece makes it harder for her to get him into trouble, then he will keep it as close to his chest as he can. Kes knows the badger’s loyalty doesn’t always extend to the outcasts.
God –– Merlin –– help them. ]
You’re late. Are you still going?
-- hi.
[ She finds it very, very unlikely that he doesn't remember where he's meant to be right now. She quirks a brow, just barely, and wonders why he's decided not to tell her. It doesn't matter to her if he skips class or not -- she hardly knows him, after all, and she doesn't gain any sort of satisfaction from getting someone into trouble for something like this.
She's very late at this point. History of Magic has never particularly intrigued her, and while she knows she should be there, the idea of avoiding it for another day is very tempting. ]
I dunno.
[ Josephine shrugs. ]
I suppose not.
8tracks|Download|Spotify | Gryffindor|Ravenclaw|Slytherin
i. you’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum // bring gloom down to the minimum —ii. gonna try with a little help from my friends — iii. I see your sun is shining — iv. they call me mellow yellow — v. and if you’re homesick // give me your hand and I’ll hold it— vi. now, I don’t claim to be an A student // but I’m trying to be — vii. now you know how happy I can be — viii. I came upon this thing called trust // it helps us to adjust — ix.told you I’ll be here forever // said I’ll always be your friend // took an oath, I’ma stick it out to the end —x. reach for the bright side — xi. if you ever need a helping hand // I’ll be there on the double — xii. it’s okay to say you’ve got a weak spot // you don’t always have to be on top // better to be hated than loved, loved, love for what you’re not —xiii. I am grounded, I am humbled, I am one with everything — xiv. be my friend, be my love // follow me to get lost, — xv. but the most amazing thing // that I’ve seen in my time // are all the different people
[Music Blog]
I’m sick of the word Home, I am so tired of all it does not mean.
Daily Haiku on Love by Tyler Knott Gregson (via tylerknott)
