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⁇ ✘ ☠ ☢ ☼
a worried text ;
[TEXT] have you seen joshua lately?
a text that should have been sent ;
[DRAFT] im in some trouble
misguided advice ;
[TEXT] josh will be fine here[TEXT] but he can always go back
a desperate text ;
[TEXT] can you tell frank to call me im in [TEXT] **trouble
a promise ;
[TEXT] ill look after ricky
all the texts???
2am text;
[TEXT] i think about coming back a lot
[TEXT] i just cant bring myself to do it
[TEXT; delayed] please delete these
unsent text;
[DRAFT] i did something bad
[DRAFT] dont tell jos
threatening text;
[TEXT] its none of your concern ana
[TEXT] i can look after myself
[TEXT] ive been doing it long enough
[TEXT; delayed] im sorry
affectionate text;
[TEXT] you and frank are better parents than i ever had
[TEXT] will you tell him that for me
drunk text;
[TEXT] do th ey eveir aks ab out me
now we're torn apart (there's nothing we can do)
[ Victory.
It's not what she wanted it to be -- not what anyone ever wants it to be, and she's angry with herself for thinking it would be anything other than this. She wants to live and forget and smother nightmares and cannon fire and lifeless eyes, tuck it away in the hollow of her chest and pretend, pretend, pretend that she can go on in some semblance of normalcy.
(She can't. She can't because she wakes up screaming more than she doesn't and she looks at her hands sometimes when she's in the kitchen or alone in her bedroom and she sees them covered in red. She can't because she feels the heavy weight of a blade in her hand and ash in her mouth. She can't because what she's trying to swallow down is only festering, a wound infected.)
There's snow on the ground when Erik Lehnsherr returns to District 12. He is still the same, with a smile too big and unsettling, unchanged in the way that only those who live in the Capitol can be. Anticipation thrums in the patterns of his speech, lingers in the corners of his shark-grin, sparks in the wide arc of his hand as he ushers them out of Victor's Village and toward the awaiting train station. The tour, he says, as though they are looking forward to it as much as he is. Parties and speeches and fanfare, a stop in each District before they reach the Capitol. Something they should enjoy.
Josephine can't look at him, but she doesn't miss the heaviness in Raven's golden eyes, the spark of something like anger. She watches the world go by out the window of a train, picks at the skin around her nails until her fingertips are raw and aching. She keeps to herself because it's better to distance herself, even if it is no easier.
They go to District 11 first and her stomach twists into tight knots.
She knows who they're going to meet here. Joshua Jacobo's face still haunts her, swims in the back of her mind even while she's awake. An alliance of three, impossible, attachment they never should've allowed themselves -- attachment she never should've allowed herself. There was never a way for them all to survive (there never should've been a way for both she and Roman to survive, either), and yet she'd clung to it, clung to them, made promises that she had no way of keeping.
Bile, hot and acidic, rises in her throat when she thinks of him covered in blood. The splay of his limbs and his empty eyes are still too vivid.
I can't do this, she wants to say, voice high and desperate. I can't, I can't.
(She has to.)
So she steps onto the stage with Roman. The skin of her knuckles is stretched white, taut around the cards Erik had given them, words she doesn't intend to say. She doesn't know what to say, not to these people, not when she looks up and to the left and sees Josh's face on a screen, his family on a platform below it.
A mother and brother. The one he'd volunteered for.
Her eyes sting and she swallows, drops her eyes. Guilt crawls up the curve of her spine, winds between the ladder of her ribs, fills her mouth. Roman speaks, but she doesn't hear a word; the sound is muffled like she's trapped underwater. They leave the stage and she wants nothing more than to flee to the train but she can't, and the next time she looks up, there's someone standing there and her heart sinks. ]
Oh. Oh, I --
[ Her voice trembles. ]
I'm sorry.
You're an amazing young woman, and you should get to experience life on your own to truly learn about yourself before settling down, if that's what you choose to do. Don't rush into things only to find you regret it later.
[ She doesn't know what to say to that -- it's what her mother would've told her, maybe, had she stayed in New Orleans. Or maybe her mother wouldn't have said it at all, because she was the sort of woman who didn't see the world for herself before she settled down because she never had a chance to; it was her father and another and another, half-relationships bred from loneliness and a need to have someone.
(Sometimes, Josephine wonders if maybe that's reflected in herself, something she doesn't want but has anyway.) ]
I know.
[ She doesn't, though, not really. ]
I don't plan on settlin' down anytime soon, though -- if I do at all.
“I missed you."
She stands outside of the gates for a long, long time, fingers curled around the wrought iron. She wants to go back, she n e e d s to go back and she can feel it tugging at her wrists and her ankles and her heart, a constant pull toward the mansion she never should've left behind. It's been a few years and she wants to avoid all that will come with returning, wants to slip inside and go upstairs and find her old bedroom -- if it's still there, and not occupied by someone else -- and see Elliot and Josh and Joyce, but she knows it isn't going to be as easy as all that.
Her steps are quick, though, as she rounds the drive, and the front door swings open before she knows it. The front hall is as familiar as it was when she left and her chest aches with it; she leaves her suitcase by the door and turns a corner, nearly runs right into the person walking down the hallway.
It's Josh's mother -- of course, of course.
"Josephine," she says, with surprise blooming in her face for a brief moment before she smooths it away. "I missed you."
"I missed you, too."
It's all she can manage, with her throat suddenly tight.
And she steps forward and Josephine doesn't step back; the woman's arms are tight around her back and she holds on for all she's worth.
[20] Family is not about blood. Family is all about love and acceptance. So many people love and care about you where you are now. Please never forget that, dear.
[ She wonders, sometimes, if she did end up forgetting that along the way, or if it's just something she's tried to let go of on her own. ]
motherofstone said: [text] Would you check up on Luz? [text] She seems troubled. [text; delayed] More than usual.
[DRAFT] luz and i dont really ge
[TEXT] yeah i can
[TEXT] when was the last time you talked to her
motherofstone said: [text] i’m glad to hear it. [text] i’m doing well enough. been planning new ways to embarrass joshua in front of his students.
[TEXT] i'm sure that can't be too hard
[TEXT] what've you got planned?
