#hivechose

[sc4torccio]

@hivechose asked: “i thought i could save you. but you can’t pull someone out of a storm if they won’t even take your hand. ” (tai in the adult timeline? shes being a hypocrite but-)

" you know you can't just throw cash at everything and expect it to get better, right? " despite its rough - edged placidity, there was a little acerbity underlining that question. a little subdued, self contained darkness.

natalie appreciated it, deep down — what tai had done for her over the years. that, when things were at their worst, when she'd lost the will to tread water and resigned herself to drowning in her guilt, her memories ( and more coke than she could fathom ), she'd been there to throw her a lifeline. bail money. a place to get clean, get her shit together. but she knew it was only out of obligation, at least in part. and the fixes taissa presented, however resistant she became, never lasted.

while the others had committed to their mundane lives, faking their way through twenty - five year old damage, natalie couldn't help but feel like her own existence had long commenced circling a black hole; like there was something festering, an open wound under a never - ending slew of bandaids.

chewing her lip, nat failed to hold taissa's gaze. asking for her help, after so long... it gnawed at nat like worn down teeth against bone; needled through her self worth and peeled away every layer of chewed - away ego. and yet, for the last decade, she'd had nowhere else to turn that wasn't travis. " I just need a place to crash, tai. a motel, or whatever. "

[sc4torccio]

@hivechose asked: “i can’t be angry. i’m too tired. i just want it to be over. ” (travis maybe?)

" is that why you're still letting lottie fuck you up with those shrooms? " in the quiet, far enough from the animal pen that the absence of audible pain could've almost been considered some twisted shade of serene, natalie's assertion trod the tired, worn - out brink of accusation. exasperation, even, the steady simmer of it barely veiling her worry.

travis' exhaustion was something tangible, something as real as the dirt under his nails, the etched drawings he'd kept beside the spot where he'd pitched his hammock. he might've still been standing, still on shauna's good side, for now, but the cracks were starting to show underneath. the fault - lines, masked by berry wine and foraged mushrooms, widened into an unmanageable crevasse in the wake of their last hunt across the frozen lake, were as easy to track as coach scott's sharp and unmoored decline. there was no disguising just how bad things were. how much worse they could still get, even with the sun beaming down through the crosshatched canopy of trees.

how what she'd let happen, what they'd both witnessed together haunted her, too.

though she strode a half - step closer, nat didn't reach out for travis. didn't even try. after the part she'd played, she hadn't earned that kind of solace from him.

" travis, that's not an escape, " she implored, even so. " she's fucking insane. "

[lcveblossomed]

"Can you help me." A tiny voice calls out. Lou is laying on the ground her hair splayed out and clothes dirty. She reaches a hand up and points at a branch of the tree she's laying under. "Is that a cartoon. LIke did someone draw that there?"

After a few moments her arm falls limp at her side and she laughs. "I stole Lottie's tea and that tree looks fake. Do you think it's fake or- I mayyyy be losing my mind." She giggles. "I forget how my arms work."

@hivechose \\ liked for a small starter

[sc4torccio]

@hivechose / tai

" what the fuck, tai? we're this close to getting out of here, and you want to stay and howl at the fucking moon, too? "

natalie couldn't help but seethe in the ice cold immediacy of her disbelief. this is what they'd dreamed about for months; what they'd hoped for, before hope in and of itself had seemed too farfetched, and any concept of a world outside the tree line surrounding them had disappeared with the dead into the worm - ridden, hungry earth. rescue, at this stage, was nothing shy of a miracle; a bolt from the blue that'd been doused in blood and met with scepticism. uneasiness. admittedly, her own, too. trust was a fragile thing, especially in the yawning, endless wild. but the lifeline they'd been offered was just that: rescue, when everything else had been struggling, scavenging, and the spectre of lottie's stupid, old, nameless gods. it'd been sacrifice and death, and wasting away all winter, just to gnaw the flesh off the bones of their friends.

there'd been nothing safe about it. nothing worth staying for. not even the crudely interred remains of the friends they'd left behind.

jaw quivering, tight and stressed and dirt - smeared, nat could only offer her friend a shiver of taut exasperation. a glower, almost, full of something like betrayal. ( to turn down safe passage now, with winter approaching, however tenuous it was — was unthinkable. )

[nevergods]

@hivechose asked: "I know I'm bad at this; you don't have to rub it in." (jackie for nat) // random dialogue

"FINE." Nat purses her lips together in a moment of holding back a petty response— despite being out hunting for the majority of the day, she isn't blind to what the rest of the group has picked up on about Jackie's contributions, or... lack thereof. Believable or not, she isn't angry about her role in comparison. As much as the gun made her stomach turn in the early days of pulling the trigger, she likes being their hunter, she likes the purpose it provides, far more fulfilled in catching game than she would be cooking or fetching water, even if it were less work. She won't lie and say she isn't a little bitter, though, fueled by what she knows Jackie thinks of her reputation. She isn't innocent when it comes to resorting to a few pointed jabs.

Now, though, she doesn't have the energy to fight. A sharp inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth, and she takes over with the rope to demonstrate, actually showing her this time. "But you gotta at least try. It's tying a few knots, Jackie, it's not gonna kill you."

[proph5t]

             ❛            travis , i'm not the enemy here .. i'm just trying to help you. help us. all of us.            ❜           my voice was quiet , lilting upon my tongue as i sank my knees into the dirt across from him , offering a soothing hum in my chest as i held out my hands , palms up , a crease forming between my brows. i knew the forces he was tapping into would be difficult to understand , i knew better than anyone. they were hungry , violent , frightening even to someone already beaten & broken down with his own grief. i didn't necessarily envy him the task ahead , but he had to see it through.

it was necessary , he just had to be strong enough to see it. taissa kept butting in after our last fiasco , saying i was pushing him too hard ; she didn't understand. none of them did , just travis. the cup of mushroom tea sat untouched by my thigh , & i wasn't going to force it down his throat , i wasn't a monster , i just needed him to understand what was at stake.             ❛            i know you're scared .. i was too , at first it gets easier if you stop fighting , things start .. making sense. the picture gets clearer , & there's a kind of peace in that clarity. i can help you find it.            ❜          

@hivechose / season 3 closed starter !

[bravevolunteer-a]

@hivechose asked: 96 for whoever lmao // spotify wrapped meme

96. waiting room — phoebe bridgers

MICHAEL DOESN'T KNOW what to say when the ( former, now that they're all dying here sooner or later ) assistant coach approaches him. If anyone else here were to follow him when he decides to split off for a bit, he'd bet on at least a few others before her, despite Cathy's tendency for looking after the team even after it stopped being her job. Plus, he figured whoever it was, he was about to get shit for not helping in whatever tasks everyone's taken up today— he woke up with everything weighing heavier than usual, he'll help later.

"What? You wanna drag me back to help with the laundry?" He's stiff, words clipped, an attitude that makes him come off as far more stubborn and apathetic but doesn't quite fully mask the tightness in his chest, either. "I'm not going far, I'm not that stupid, just— I'll come back in a few minutes, I know it's for the better, probably."

[bravevolunteer-a]

@hivechose asked: ❛ you’re not as bad as everyone says you are. ❜ (jackie) // an assortment of dialogue prompts

MICHAEL EXHALES— a slight scoff, not the rude or dismissive kind, but a reaction mostly brought forth by disbelief, with a bit of ironic amusement in there too. He never would have expected to hear this from Jackie Taylor, of all people. Their reputations among their peers couldn't be more different, and they didn't exactly interact when he was... sort of near the team before they crashed. He isn't inclined to buy that, but... she isn't exactly what people say, either.

"Hey, it's not like there's that much shit I can do out here." The remark has a double meaning to it. Not as many opportunities to get into trouble the way he would back home, and not much he can contribute. He catches the glares the others send Jackie's way, but... he thinks he might understand. He doesn't know if it's for the same reasons ( hard to be optimistic about rescue when he often struggled to find motivation for his own survival even before it became a necessity ), but it makes finding common ground between them easier. "You're not as stuck-up as people say, either."