#pearlymuses

[harriedwritings]

    ( continued from here // @pearlymuses // joy & wash )

Does it help, she asks.

Wash frowns.

He doesn’t know.

He’s got this habit of late, of processing verbally, though, something his psychiatrist had recommended -- if he processes it verbally, there’s more of a chance that it’ll stick -- or at least, that’s the idea.

So, his shoulders hunching in a shrug, his voice is soft as he stares into his cocoa; “-- I don’t know. I think-- No one but my family’s called me David since before I enlisted. Wash caught on pretty quick. And we were big on nicknames anyway. Then when uh...they didn’t call me anything, really, just a number, and I don’t... I think it-- I think it’d depend, probably. On how much I...forget...” His throat suddenly feels dry but he can’t bring himself to take a sip of the hot cocoa. “-- Hannah told me there was uh...when I first got back, that there was a time when I thought I was there but that she was there too? Like I’d forgotten coming home and everything that came after, but knowing who she was. Apparently it was twenty minutes of her trying to convince me we were stateside until it started to click. She only ever calls me David and it didn’t help then. I don’t know. I guess... I don’t know, I don’t know why I brought it up.”

Wash shrugs again, the movement nearly imperceptible.

[fcrgedstrcngth]

@pearlymuses (cont.)

JJ feels her heart clench a little as she watches this woman – Joy Newsome, who has become something of a momentary celebrity in the news as a story of hope and resilience against terrible odds. Which would almost be ironic, given the real, hurting person that JJ sits across from now, were it not still, in its own way, the truth. Were it not actually miraculous. If only Ms. Newsome could see that. “Your life,” JJ informs her, gentle and sure as she leans towards her slightly. “Is a miracle. Your son…” JJ is nearly stunned into silence for a moment as she considers the enormity of what Ms. Newsome has accomplished in raising her son under such conditions. “I have two sons, and I cannot imagine doing what you have. That doesn’t make this part any less difficult, but I am sure that if you can raise a boy where you have, then you are more than capable of raising him out here. You’ll learn together, and you two may be that much closer because of it. I’m sure this is hard, and it may honestly be hard for a long time to come, but little by little, it will get better.”

[liisacastle]

@pearlymuses from here

Lisa smiled widely (and slightly drunkenly) at him. “I know!” Because the music was loud enough to wake the dead, she was forced to yell over it. “And this is me being a good friend. Getting you out of the house on a Saturday night! Maybe you’ll make some new ones. Friends, I mean!” Granted, bringing Jack to a house party where people were drinking and grinding on each other wasn’t her best idea, she wanted him to have more friends. Or a girlfriend? That was a stray thought she pushed aside. “Come on. Dance with me!” Putting her empty red cup down, she tried to tug him onto the floor some more. “Let’s go make some friends!” 

[bona-fidelius-archive]

@pearlymuses cont from x

Remus’ eyes widened in surprise as he opened the door wider to invite in the girl. She looked freezing and he immediately began to worry. “A mile. That’s a ways to walk in this rain,” he commented. He heard the downpour echoing in the darkness outside. “Please, come in. I can get you some tea and...” He realized suddenly he didn’t have the muggle things she’d requested and his stomach dropped. How nutty not to have a phone. He suppressed a smile as he imagined offering her his owl. “And I’ll find you a phone,” he assured her even though he wasn’t quite sure how. 

[harriedwritings]

    ( @pearlymuses​ // ophelia & shane )

He’d been doing better since quitting his job and starting to work with the chickens full-time. Still bad. But better. It helped that he wasn’t walking past the bar on his way home every day. At Marnie’s suggestion, he was out for a walk, heading nowhere in particular, surrounded by nature and sunshine and only occasionally stopping to pick a sweet pea for Jas. It helped, he thought. No people. Just...nature. Calming, in a way.

Scratch the ‘no people’ thing. That was a people. He’d’ve let her be, ignored her presence, and carried on his way, but something occurred to him. He didn’t know her. This was a town comprised of less than thirty people; the farmer’d been the last person to rock up, and that was long enough ago he wasn’t sure when it’d been, so? A new person? Who he hadn’t heard about? The fuck?

He still didn’t greet her, didn’t think it was really any of his business. She looked familiar, somehow. Again, though, not really any of his business. Shane nodded at her. The part of him that’d been trying to work on sociability wanted him to say hi or something. The rest of him justified simply nodding by pointing out that he was already outside in the fresh air.

He stooped, picked another sweet pea. Jas would love them.

[harriedwritings]

    // closed for @pearlymuses ( lisbeth & modern!corvo )

Corvo was sitting cross-legged on the floor as his daughter stood beside him, braiding his hair. He liked to get here early, something calming about sitting in a space he’d canvassed every square inch of a thousand times, with just the hum of the fluorescent lights and Emily’s little melodies. It wouldn’t be long before people started to trickle in, wouldn’t be long before he settled into ‘time to teach these people self-defence’ mode. All these people whose lives he... Suffice to say that if he fucked up in teaching them how to do this, and if that had repercussions down the line, that was on him. For now, though, it was hair-braiding time.

    There were about twenty minutes before the class, and as per usual, he didn’t know who’d be turning up, particularly tonight, it being a bank holiday and all. People were welcome to dip in and out, the small classes a hodge-podge of people who’d been coming for months and people for whom it was their first time. It didn’t matter. Everyone learned differently anyway.

The door opened, a woman ( who he didn’t recognise ) stepping in. Corvo waved while Emily called out, “-- Hey! Come on in! I’m Emily and this is Corvo. Do you know sign language?”

        Emily.

    Corvo shot his daughter a Look™ for her bluntness. She seemed unaffected by this and merely continued to braid his hair.

[harriedwritings]

    // closed for @pearlymuses ( joy & wash )

Wash’s breath caught in his throat as he wiped his palms on his jeans. It was important, he reminded himself. It was important to establish positive associations for physical contact. The more comfortable they both got with physical contact, the more physical contact they could...handle. So this was good. And important. And he needed to not psych himself out right now. And he especially needed to not be mentally reviewing the easiest ways to incapacitate the tiny woman whose company he was in.

He inhaled.

He exhaled.

He glanced sidelong at Joy.

Inhaled and exhaled again.

Why was holding hands so hard?

Still, he had to believe that they could do something so basic as holding hands with someone that wasn’t an immediate relative. He had to. So, he put his hand, palm-up on the couch between the two of them. And he wiggled his fingers, to lighten the mood. Didn’t say anything, though. Didn’t need to.

[harriedwritings]

    // continued from here // @pearlymuses

“-- Oh, the teen magazines for sure,” nodded Wash, continuing to flick through a magazine and skimming the articles about various things that Seventeen deemed it necessary to document. He shot her a sidelong sort of awkward smile, awkward mostly because all his smiles were awkward these days, it was not a reflection on anything whatsoever. Except, y’know, his general inability to people.

Stretching and popping his back with a minor wince, his brow furrowed as he considered it, because it was something to consider, and while her mind was laden with her most recent doctor’s appointment, his was still whirring from his last psych visit. He let the magazine fall open on his chest as he looked across at her. “-- Funerals are a way to move on. Maintaining a subscription is like...clinging to something you don’t... I don’t know.”

He hadn’t been expecting to make a friend at that group. He hadn’t been expecting to learn how to Joy. Learning how to Joy hadn’t helped him learn how to people, though. He still wasn’t great at reading things at times. Now might have been one of them; he had no way of knowing.

“-- It’s pretty cool, though. You get to see how teen magazines’ve changed over time.”