#fatumcerta

[empireburned]

@fatumcerta sent : i was looking for some, well ... books.

  " books? " for a long moment, tabitha merely looks at her daughter, brows furrowed. it's nothing she would have expected from julie (although frankly, she never really knows what to expect from her these days). her arms cross, head shaking subtly. " what books are so important that you would risk going back into that house? " everything about that collapsed pile of rubble makes tabitha uneasy, and she'd much rather have julie nowhere near it. " do you have any idea how dangerous that could have been? "

[doomdays]

@fatumcerta said, "you’re not okay. you’re stubborn."

julie is stubborn, it's something she's always been aware about herself, but that doesn't mean she's wrong. it's always a knee jerk reaction when it's her mother criticizing, julie on the defensive immediately, a scowl on her face, the hurt of a child in her eyes — but she's not a kid anymore, she hasn't been long before they got stuck here, and she refuses to let her mother see through her.

she's not okay, either, but she's run out of ways to fix any of this; she's run out of ways to explain to her mother what she knows without revealing too much about what she's been doing, how she's been handling any of it. julie doesn't even remember the last time she felt like she could really let her mom in, without feeling like it's some kind of failing. julie loves her, she knows tabitha loves her, too — but there's so much left unspoken between them.

"how can anyone be okay when—" she starts, rearing up for a speech that already falls flat in her mind, so her lips purse together in frustration, her head shaking. "i'm not stubborn. i just see this place for what it is." or at least, what it's taken from her.

[52232]

"Stop talking to me like I'm a child!" ( julie -> randall)

the kid is pushing it . randall has been made aware of his lack of patience facing individuals especially ones younger than him but he's been trying his best with this one , and he's grown to recognize this irritating tremor of worry in his chest whenever she stepped a foot into the ruins . today didn't go smoothly either , she was frantic and the sun would set in a few hours , they couldn't afford another trip into those ruins for today nor could she actually .. survive another one . she was trembling , making his jaw tense as he let her slap his hand away from her arm . he reaches again , harsh and hurried to yank her away from the ruined pieces of stones ; a gate to old deaths in memories.

‘ you wanna go there again ? fine . but i'm not staying here to be fucking torn apart by those things when night comes . ‘ he hisses , grips her arms tighter to catch her eyes ─ keep the eye contact . how do you control a fire that's so determined to wander back into the house and burn everything down ? randall feels sympathetic in a way , he had to mourn his own father during his teen years too and his coping mechanism was beating the kids up around the neighborhood or hiding under his window in the backyard with his dog .. he loosens his grip . and sighs , letting go completely to rub his eye , touching nowhere close to his wound . still angry red , still threatening to bleed . ‘ listen . we come back tomorrow . okay ? you look like a corpse . ‘ he walks around her to stand between her and the ruins , and gestures toward the path that leads away from the danger zone ; no enterance again , better walk away before randall drags her out of the woods . for now , all the weapon he has to discourage her from torturing herself are his eyes ─ glaring , not coldly , an odd mixture of reluctant worry trying to hide itself behind a glare that probably mirrors hers . he opens one arm , gestures firmly for her to walk ahead of him , away from this place . ‘ go . ‘

* prompts. accepting