Sight Of The Sun :: [Calliope + Wolfy] (68th Finale Day)

[L△LIA]

for once
there is nothing up my sleeve
just some scars
from a life that used to trouble me

Mad cat, I pace the space outside of Poe's room, making it as close as the door handle before skittering backwards across the tile flooring and rewinding up the hallway a few steps. The passing nurses keep giving me funny looks and I want to shake them off, want to get away, but I'm not sure how. The closest I can get to going into the room is pressing my face against the glass until my nose smushes and a red splotch blooms in the center of my forehead. Like that, my breath fogs up the glass until Poe dissolves from sight before my eyes. He's there and then he's gone. There and gone. There. Gone.

I should be used to this. I'm not.

A twitch hurtles up my spine and I jerk away, the sound of my footsteps echoing out. I can't go into that room because my brother is a reminder of stillness and things I can't give a name to today, not when Galaxy is as close to coming home as Aesop ever was. Closer, even. There is this violent hope raging through me, howling and tearing at the pessimistic despair I've re-carved all my bones from. It's enough to make me doubt myself... in a good way? I think that's what most people would say and I can't argue with that, not when my chest is on fire and I'm writhing with the unsettled madness of it. It's almost like dancing. I don't know who I am right now.

The next thing I know, the idea of going to see Poe has pushed me back so far that I pass by Galaxy's old, empty room and find myself pacing restlessly in a place where I have even less business being. The name on the closest door says PAINT CHU and I can't go in there either... but that's not why I'm here. I can't admit why, but I do know that it has nothing to do with Paint. It's five? Ten? Fifteen minutes? I don't exactly understand the logic of time right now, but it's probably still passing as I wait aimlessly for reason to walk out of that door and eventually it does. After all, Wolfgang's visits to this hospital are almost as consistent as mine and so him being here is as unexceptional as a sunrise or breathing in or any other thing that has to happen.

It's obvious, but that doesn't mean I'm admitting anything. Except, my defiant body is tagging along behind him as soon as he steps out of the room and when I reach out to grab his shirt sleeve, it's not a choice. It's a sunset. It's breathing out. It just has to happen, sort of like the lie I tell myself about all of these things being unexceptional. "Wait!" The desperation in my voice is quiet enough to be missed, except for the way the syllables are laced with cracks of fragility. My fingers are tangled up in the fabric of his shirt and I don't let go — not of the fabric or the warmth or the hope or the desperation. "Can you just wait for a second?" I haven't been running, but I feel a little like I'm out of breath anyhow.

Blinking up at him, I couldn't tell you why. Mixed expressions muddle up my face and I can hear a thin whisper of Claudius Templesmith's voice reaching out to us from the television in the waiting room at the end of the hall. It sounds like the weight of a hand upon my back and I redirect my gaze to the ground, before the unstable rebellion within me flares up and I'm making eye contact again. "I —" It won't come out at first. "I Need —" Oh, God. Oh, Ripred. "I need your help." Flinching against the unfathomable blasphemy tumbling out of my mouth, all I can do is stare him down and swear with all my fingers crossed that I'm truly as shameless as I sound.

A faint blush creeps up on me and I smack a hand over my face. My nose smushes against my palm and the red flares up again, but there's no glass. The air doesn't fog with my exhalation and so when I hazard another glance, Wolfgang doesn't fade away. He's there and then he stays. There and staying. There. Staying. "Please?" I'm really not used to this at all.

[gamemaker kelsier]

[presto][/presto]

W O L F G A N G  C L A I R E  C H U

{ c a n ' t   g o   h o m e
a l o n e    a g a i n ;

Paint doesn't know me today and for the seventy-second time in the past ten minutes I wonder what I'm really doing here. She'd already thrown the same pillow at me three times and screamed about there being no colour again at least fifteen times. I've never been able to figure out what she meant by that. When I asked the doctor if it was possible that she'd gone colour-blind he looked at me like I was complete idiot. I don't really blame him for that. Granted, at the time I was surviving off of seven cups of coffee and three hours of sleep total in a seventy-two hour period. Still, that's no excuse for idiocy these days I suppose.

After a few hopeless attempts at getting her to at least go to sleep and rest so that I might too, I give up. The nurses come in, intent on sedating her. I hate watching that anyway, so I stand up and tug on today's suit jacket. I grab my contact lens from off of the table and adjust my glasses on the end of my nose. They're not as thick as they used to be when I was a couple of years younger, but I do need them to see, which can get rather annoying sometimes. Dealing with cleaning them and misplacing them all of the time is still better than being blind and dumb. I'd never go back to that.

The Hospital is quiet, in an uproar of tension. One of the patients that used to be treated here is dead, another's life is on the line. The staff is reserved, thoughtful, almost sad. It's weird, I never believed the people here to have any feeling. As a man of science, I've put my own away. Or I've tried too. I don't know if I've succeeded. Lately I've been feeling pretty shitty about Paint. On how she isn't getting any better. Everything I try fails. I'm failing her everyday, all of the time that I'm not saving her. I wish I knew how to save her.

I'm tugged out of my thoughts by a literal tug of my suit jacket. "Slave girl," I say, slightly surprised. I'd only caught glimpses of her lately. Well. If you didn't count the time I rubbed her back as she evacuated her stomach into the lobby rubbish bin. She sounds desperate, lost. Like how Paint sometimes sounds after waking up in the real world. Again.

"What is it?" I ask, voice strangely gentle for when I'm dealing with her, "What do you want from me?"

[presto][/presto]

[L△LIA]

for once
there is nothing up my sleeve
just some scars
from a life that used to trouble me

This is a terrible idea, but it's all I've got and I can't turn back now. I'm here. He's here. This is happening. It's the first time I've let that word — help — slip past my lips in years and I want to swallow it back, but I can't. It's there and it's awful and I don't know what the hell I've done, but —

"Slave girl."

Just the same way, it's out before I can think to stop it: a laugh. It sputters up and out my throat, messy and brimming with shock. What did he just call me?! Then I remember our deal and how I'm not supposed to be the one demanding things, but that it's meant to be the other way around. For the moment that this thought is bumbling through my head, I forget everything and when I remember that... I stop regretting. That word. That plea for his help. It wasn't wrong, because he can help. He just did.

"What is it?" His voice doesn't sound the way I expected it to. "What do you want from me?"

"Distract me." I'm looking at him with the kind of insistence that could be mistaken for courage, but is really just a lack of options. It's not so much that he's my first choice, but that he's my last choice that just so happens to also be my only choice. And yet... maybe that's not quite the right way to put it either. "Amnesia starts to look so easy around here, but I still can't figure it out, so distract me. I need to not think about things right now, but that's all I do when I'm on my own."

[gamemaker kelsier]

[presto][/presto]

W O L F G A N G  C L A I R E  C H U

{ c a n ' t   g o   h o m e
a l o n e    a g a i n ;

I know the feeling, when you feel like you're choking on your own sound and everything comes across as slanted, like an old horror flick set in black and white and in a rambling old castle on a hill top. The horrible wave of feeling it brings gets stuck in the mouth like a balled up gym sock. I'e felt it too many times to count but my way of distraction isn't one I'd advise for anyone. It left me more messed up than a soccer mom mooned out on Vicodin.

I don't know why I'm even considering helping her when I've got a sneaking suspicion that she's the one who's been finding my various pages of notes and making 'helpful corrections'. Maybe it's because I'm an old sap or maybe it's because if Paint was here and she wasn't so insane, she'd do anything to help someone in need and I'm still trying to become the brother that I never was and she adored. Whatever this is, it's more than I want to deal with on a day like today.

But what kind of asshole is willing to anonymously rub a girl's back when she's throwing up but not comfort her straight to her face? Well. This one, for one. Once a coward, always a coward. I don't know how to cheer up myself let alone another person. She wants a distraction, and she laughs like bells. Oddly pretty for a girl who's all sharp edges and too much cheek. I called her 'Slave Girl' and she laughed at me. Go figure. I can insult her more, if that would help.

Distraction.

She needs a distraction.

Fine.

I'm grasping at straws but I reach out and pluck at her sleeve, "What are you wearing? I'm pretty sure my Grandmother was buried in something like this," I say coldly. With a sigh, I slip a cigarette out from my coat pocket and stick it between my lips without lighting it yet. "Come along then," I say,making my way to the exit, an idea forming.

[presto][/presto]

[L△LIA]

for once
there is nothing up my sleeve
just some scars
from a life that used to trouble me

The way he looks at me isn't a first. Oh, no. I've been looked at like that by people so many times before that I don't flinch, even though I know. He doesn't really want to deal with me right now. I look exasperating to him and like more effort than I'm worth. While this isn't exactly unfair on his part, I don't really care because I'm in the mood to be selfish. I'm hi-jacking him from his life and that's just something he's going to have to come to terms with. I'm not backing down.

Still, for whatever reason, he doesn't fight me. I'm absolutely certain he's going to rail around and call me slave girl at least one more time in an effort to get me to scram, but instead he just... gives in. Ta-freaking-da! Just. Like. That. "What are you wearing?" Holy shit, what have I done? "I'm pretty sure my Grandmother was buried in something like this."

I'm irrationally indignant as he unleashes his judgement upon me, glaring at him with my face all screwed up as my mouth stutters with emptiness. And what's so wrong with my clothes, Chu?! I look down. Aesop's jacket. Nothing wrong with that! An old hoodie, maybe one of Poe's. Okay... maybe you can have that one. Everything Poe touched turned stupid. A t-shirt so tattered I can't tell what used to be written on it anymore. Also, enough holes that I could probably see my bra through it a little bit if I looked a little cl— Okay. Calliope one, Wolfgang two. The jeans? Well, the jeans are ripped up and stained with the kind of illicit substances that would probably give a drug sniffing dog a heart attack and so I don't have a smart comeback because, clearly, I suck at this. "Clothes, Wolfgang." My sarcasm lacks its usual rabid bite. "They're called clothes."

He's grasping at my sleeve now though and I don't shake him off, I just let him tug me along until he trades me in for a cigarette. "Come along then."

I don't know where we're headed, but the sound of a nearby television is getting louder, so I just keep my eyes fixed on him. Distraction. "Gotta hand it to you, you've got some balls to break out the cancer sticks in the middle of a hospital. Can I have one?"

[gamemaker kelsier]

[presto][/presto]

W O L F G A N G  C L A I R E  C H U

{ c a n ' t   g o   h o m e
a l o n e    a g a i n ;

"If that," I say with a sneer, "Is your idea of clothing then I'd hate to see what you think formal wear is." I don't know what it is about this girl but she brings out the absolute worst in me. For two people in similar situations we have not been able to get along since day one. Granted, day one was the day that she spilled coffee all over me and then demanded I give her mine. A least I got a slave out of it. Not that she's been a very useful slave so far.

Maybe today is the day that we begin.

I slip another cigarette out of the carton and hand it to her absentmindedly, hands already searching for my lighter inside of my suit jacket. I try to think of the last time that I willingly spent a day not working or being with Paint and I actually can't. Maybe that's a bit sad but I never said that I was the fun-loving type. I used to be. I spent years doing nothing important but now I can't. I don't have the time for it. "It's not like I light the cigarette inside," I say, rolling my eyes ceiling-ward, "But perhaps it's my rebellious side coming back to haunt me."

As we exit the building I go to open the door and then pause, turning to look at her, a mischievous smile transforming my features. Instead, I wait for her to open the door for me, not letting her forget that she is the slave, not me. "Well?" I say, gesturing towards the door, while spinning the lighter in my hand.

[presto][/presto]

[L△LIA]

for once
there is nothing up my sleeve
just some scars
from a life that used to trouble me

I know it's ridiculous, but all I can think is: What the hell would I do with formal clothes? It's followed up by this mental picture of me standing in my kitchen, wearing a satin ballgown while casually pulling a freshly baked batch of crystal meth out of the oven. Like diamonds to match. I'm not sure what my face looks like as I side-glance at him, but he's kind of funny. Hilarious, even, although it's totally by accident.

What kind of life does he think I'm living?

He hands me a cigarette just in time for me to shamelessly smirk at a passing nurse and give her a little wave as we walk by. Her expression is twice as good as mine. "It's not like I light the cigarette inside,"and he's too busy rolling his eyes at me to see that we've made a mini-scene for ourselves, "But perhaps it's my rebellious side coming back to haunt me."

"If this," I copy his previous sneer with all the exaggeration I can muster, "is your idea of rebellion then I'd hate to see what you think real trouble is." Unlit cigarette dangling precariously from my lips, I busy myself pulling my hood up and buttoning my jacket against the cold that's to come. My hair sticks out all crazy from the edges, unsettled wisps that probably fall within Wolfgang's definition of rebellion. It takes me a minute to notice that he's stopped to wait for me... and not out of politeness.

"Well?" He says.

"Well?" I reply with a puzzled quirk of my eyebrow. He's just standing there fucking around with his lighter and it takes a second to click into place. Ohhhh. What a bastard. I just shrug and shoot him a look like: Fine. If that's how you want to play this. Have it your way. "Stand aside!" I yell out to a crowd that doesn't really exist, loud enough for anyone milling around nearby to glance over at us and wonder what the hell I'm on about. What's most impressive about it is that I do it without dropping the cigarette from my lips. "Sir Prince Wolfboy coming through! Hear ye, hear ye! Clear the way, peasants!"

Then I open the door for him. I bow to a right angle and everything because one of us knows how to be chivalrous as hell. It's ridiculous alright, but surely only because we're not wearing our formal clothes.