come_sailaway | You must fix your heart

Entry tags:

You must fix your heart

CHARACTERS: Darcy and probably someone
DATE: it's (already) May
LOCATION: Various
SITUATION: Depressed teenager has a normal time
WARNINGS: None yet!

Let our bodies lay, mark our hearts with shame (Skulduggery)

In this moment, after Fio’s hugged Sparkles and everyone seems to be wrapping up the arguments and the… frankly inexplicable tea table (??? who does that?) Darcy is reminded of how badly she had wanted a threat to be able to punch. Sparkles, another undeserved recipient of begrudging mercy, was not that. All she’s got is adrenaline and pain and potentially some more bruised relationships than she had at the start of the day. So y’know. Tuesday.

She’s already back at her room by the time Skulduggery messages, at her limit of human contact before she disembowels someone, and by the time he arrives she’s doing what she was doing when he texted; which is to say, biting into her arm through her hoodie sleeve to muffle her screaming.

Let our blood in vain, you find God in pain (Meta + Ruby)

Darcy had been expecting some sort of sense of real triumph when all was said and done. But as it always goes, there's no ticker-tape parade when it's over. The Captain's back, Sparkles is somewhere, her friends are safe, she's… fine. The ship will just go back to business as usual. And she will too, eventually; back to the endless loop of training and more training and different training and finding ways to pass the time in between waiting for… something. What is she even waiting for, now? The excursions aren’t lethal anymore, the most recent threat to the ship has been dealt with, and they still can’t leave and... She’ll get back to it, honestly, it’ll all go back to the way things were, into the comforting rhythm of routine. She just… needs a minute.

Darcy passes out for about a day.

When she drags herself back to consciousness through drool and the pattern of pillow crease pressed into her face, she suddenly remembers her discussion with Ruby; and if she’s lying around feeling bad for herself, she has the time to do it to benefit someone else, so Ruby gets a text that is valiantly attempting to not seem frantic.

you still up for depression day?

Now, if your convictions were a passing phase (Kitchens + OTA)

Honestly, Darcy kind of worries she’s dreaming when she spots them for the first time. Just like December: the bright gleam of industrial steel, the smell of a kitchen freshly cleaned, a good array of knives. Not amazingly well-stocked, she’ll have to hope the Easter-Erda delivers her some of ingredients or equipment she notices are lacking (seriously, what sort of kitchen doesn’t have a rice cooker or orange oil), but literally anything is better than nothing, and it irritates her to no end that she’s going to have to thank the Captain for it.

So find her;

A) Making a batch of bread-rolls to test out the oven with: in the process of kneading, proofing, or waiting for them to finish baking.

B) Throwing together lunch for herself: cutting up vegetables, kneading pasta dough, reading a book of Christina Rosetti’s poetry while waiting for pasta to finish cooking, whisking a sauce together, and eating by herself on the floor in the corner.

C) Making a bigger meal at dinner to share: peeling potatoes, cooking off onions and garlic, browning meat, doing stretches on the floor while waiting for the food to finish cooking in the oven.

D) Or most commonly between meals: cleaning. Sharpening and washing the knives, wiping down the benchtops, doing the dishes, mopping the floors while levitating a few inches above it. It’s the first taste of real sanity she’s been able to find in… definitely since the labyrinth, probably since she arrived. Do not step on her clean floors or risk getting the mop shoved somewhere delicate.

May your ashes feed the river in the morning rays (Gym + OTA)

She imagines that a caged bird being freed feels the same way as she does setting up the treadmill. Darcy is a well-tuned machine that needs to be in motion, which is sufficient motivation to ignore the risk of getting cornered by someone in the gym again (thanks for that anxiety, Clarke,) and actually go to train during the day. Like some sort of animal.

Between the treadmill, deadlifts, one-armed push-ups, rowing machine, and the intensity with which she’s hitting the punching bag, an observer might come to the conclusion that she’s either trying to push past her limits, or run herself ragged. Either way, stay out of her way and off the machine she’s about to use or risk getting scowled at.

Get up, coward. (wildcard)

(For anything else)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Skulduggery makes it down within the five minutes he allotted himself, knocking twice on the door even as he begins to open it. It's an easy way to announce himself without having to speak -- and after so much talking and arguing and worrying, he has finally found a limit to how much he enjoys his own voice.

He closes the door behind him and regards her attempt to choke her own emotions back, then approaches her slowly. He doesn't really know what to say -- another byproduct of having talked too much already -- but he feels pressed to say something.

"Asking if you were OK seems stupid in hindsight."

"If I've wrecked whatever I have left of my friendships because of that little smoky cunt I'm punting him so hard that the Captain will feel it."

Darcy's probably also spoken too much, but not of her frustrations, her anger has boiled over anew- somehow, lending evidence to the idea that her stores of it are endless- into hands shaking with adrenaline. She crosses the room to be within arm's reach, Darcy takes his hand, placing it like you'd pet a dog at the top-back of her head. She squeezes her eyes shut and headbutts her forehead against his chest, a sound like tar being sucked through a straw as she tries to breathe deep enough to calm herself down.

Given the Captain's teary eyes at the end of the confrontation, Skulduggery can imagine he'll feel anything that Sparkles goes through, no matter how hard or soft a punting that might be.

He allows her to move him, taking the obvious cues and pulling her the rest of the way into a hug, smoothing his hand over her scalp the same way he would for Fio. He can feel tension strung up in her every muscle, but the only outlet he can think of right now involves returning to the area where most people just were. Probably best to keep both of them out of the public eye, at least for now.

"Nothing has been broken," he says. "Just bruised. ...Is this about Vance and Dimitri?"

Edited 2023-05-11 00:13 (UTC)

"Mnh-" she whimpers, which is probably an affirmation in answer to the question. The same old tune arises again as he pulls her in for a hug, of the place where she feels safe also being the person she has to hold her shit together for. Collapsing in the mix of relief and frustration and despair is less an easing and closer to trying to wring the emotions out of herself like a dishrag, trying to get over the hurdle of feeling like shit so she can scoop herself back together. He has places to be, other people to care for, she has to hurry it up. The world doesn't stop for her.

The next breath she takes limps out of her in another whimper, still manic with pent up energy, all too much for her to handle on her own.

He doesn't move, although his embrace tightens at the sound of her distress. It's true, he has places he wants to go next, but the bridge will be waiting for him after he's finished here.

"...It's true, using violence to solve our problems would have been gratifying in the moment. And they have every right to be upset that it didn't come to blows. But..." He trails off, sighing after a moment of ponderous silence. "...I don't know what might happen." Until they know what Sparkles intends to do with this reluctantly-given second chance, Skulduggery can't pretend to have a solution to Vance and Dimitri's very real concerns.

"They're never-" she wrenches in a breath- "going to- trust me- a-" it isn't just Dimitri and Vance, the full weight of her burned bridges hasn't collapsed on her until just now. Sure there was the posturing about being firmly on team Skulduggery, sure, but she never wanted to be somewhere that the average random person hated her again, with no reprieve or escape anywhere else.

"But I couldn't-" the same weakness as when she stepped off the Captain's knife or took Serpine out quickly, she just doesn't have the guts she used to and that terrifies her, "What have we-?"

It always feels right in the moment, but the consequences never arrive until afterwards.

Skulduggery doesn't often compare Darcy and Valkyrie, but he always notices the ways in which his relationships with them are the same. He's pushed them both into taking massive leaps of faith, often without knowing what lies on the other side. He's played things too close to the chest, relying on that trust time and again despite doing so very little to earn it. Sure, it almost always pays off. But when it doesn't, it's often catastrophic, and they're the ones left to pick up the pieces.

"I know. I'm sorry. It..." It's going to be okay is too easy to say, and although he knows that things will eventually get better, it isn't a certainty that things will ever go back to the way they were.

Instead, he settles for a far more true, and more meaningful sentiment. "It's a shit situation," he admits.

His admission of the situation being shit finally feels like permission enough for Darcy to also feel like it's shit. That she doesn't have to be happy with the outcome- even if it's the one she argued for. She stops struggling, stops trying to fight for breath, leans into his hand. The desire for comfort from him had been instinctive and impulsive enough that she hadn't stopped to think what it would look like on the outside, how pathetic she probably looks. Probably lucky he has such a savior complex. He wouldn't want anything to do with her otherwise.

"God," she breathes, sniffling, "what a fucking train wreck."

For the first time since they woke up from the labyrinth, Skulduggery finally allows himself to feel disappointment. Irritation, even. The philosophical arguments and circular logic and selfishness of the debate that had rolled through the bloodthirsty crowd had been tiresome at the time. In hindsight, it feels like nothing more than an exercise in proving how shitty people are. How easy it is for them to see a screaming, traumatized child and think that it doesn't deserve another chance. How they can all wake up as the same person they were when they died and still not see how lucky they are to repeatedly get the chance to make things right.

There will be clarity with distance. He'll come to see their point of view more clearly once the frustration passes. But even that is a hollow consolation, because no matter how far into the middle of the road he goes, they will never meet him on the asphalt. And they'll take it out on Darcy, because they're too afraid of him and the Captain's potential retaliation.

He lets out a long, low sigh, the way a kettle might let off steam. "I am sorry for putting you in this position. And if it gets to be too much, I -- I'll understand if you need to put some distance between us. For their sake, or yours."

Edited 2023-05-11 23:47 (UTC)

"I shouldn't," she breathes, "have to. I don't want to. Why can't they all just- fucking get Stockholm syndrome or some shit and leave us alone."

There'll be time to think through everything clearly later, now is the moment for animal hurt.

"Why can't they be the ones who fucking die? Why can't they ever be the ones who fucking die properly and do us all a fucking favour," choked and hissed, only because she knows he won't repeat it.

He takes the sentiment and folds it in with his own, keeping both their anger close to his metaphorical heart. He wishes he had a better solution than to ignore the naysayers -- wishes there was something he'd done in the past other than staunchly pretend not to hear it when people objected to what he knew was the right thing to do.

"It would be much easier for all of us," he admits. "If we weren't all stuck in a metaphysical roach motel, allowing them to burn up on re-entry to their timelines would be my first priority." It would save them the pain and heartache of having to save the chronically ungrateful.

Even that's an imperfect solution, as Darcy knows for a fact that her beloved Dimitri is one of the assholes who would rather burn up on re-entry than stay here and make a new life. She adjusts her grip on Skulduggery to weather that leak of fresh emotion, trying to breathe through it. Feeling the clock ticking in the hairs at the back of her neck in what might be mistaken for an anxious heartbeat, she finally pulls away, looking... a mess. Obviously. But that's just her default state these days.

"Okay- okay, you should get back to Fio and-" a catch in her voice- "Ava, I'll be fine here."

Even if he hadn't been painfully present for their confrontation in the waiting room, Ava and Darcy's tension is an impossible thing to miss. And, yes, maybe he owes Fio and Ava another visit, but he's already selfishly decided that after here comes the bridge, and he knows the Captain has enough to distract him for the time being.

Most of all, he knows that the word "fine" hardly ever means anything other than "surviving." And he doesn't want Darcy to be forced to survive -- he wants her to at least know things aren't falling apart around her.

"Shh. One thing at a time. Ava has Fio well in hand. I just..." He trails off, on the edge of another unrecognized minefield. His first wrong move will be his last. "Let me take care of you, now. At least for a few minutes."

If you train someone to expect a kind of response, they'll police it in themselves long after the conditions change. For Darcy, this comes as years of being forced to grow up and handle things herself and not show weakness and keep going keep going keep going keep going. Coming apart at all was an exercise in brute forcing her way past that impulse, but she's not strong enough to do it forever on her own. Skulduggery plants his foot firmly on earth that isn't a landmine in his offer, and she hopes that he doesn't take her look of surprise too personally.

"If you-" she starts, then muscles past again, swallowing her instinct to simply ask-

"Please."

Even if he did, he would never let it show in his voice. Really, the two of them are far too alike for their own good; not being able to stop and process their emotions is just one more toxic family trait, one that transcends blood or bonds forged through fire. But if now isn't the time, after everything they've been through, then will it ever be?

"Of course." He scrubs the tips of his fingers across the short fuzz on her scalp, remembering when she'd decided to shave it. He can only hope that Izzy is content, wherever he or the other ghosts might've gone. Even if it's the contentment of oblivion.

"I've got you, Darcy."

Darcy closes her eyes, focusing on the pleasant feeling of his finger-bones across her scalp, stepping back in to lean against him. She has to believe that Skulduggery has her. Unlike December, when her world collapsed last, he's here to catch her. And she knows now that his care for her is harder to shake than she'd feared, from that very conversation where she'd shaved her head for the first time.

Reaching her arms up, she hugs Skulduggery around his neck, smushing her face against his front as another whimper escapes. Even if everything else has collapsed around her, even if she's burnt all her other bridges, at least she still has him. A less scary notion, now she knows she can rely on him.

She'll find that his affection is more cancerous than it's worth. It's already eaten away at her resolution, at her friendships, at her own sense of self -- he's done that. But until then, until the moment when she tells him they're through, he's going to always keep one hand out to catch her before she hits the bottom.

He continues petting her hair while matching the strength of her hug with his other arm wrapped around her back, humming quietly to comfort her with something other than grim silence.

(It's aimless at first, but a few bars of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" slip through here and there.)

It's not like it's the first time Darcy's stood by someone bad for her. Much as she might hate it and try to fight it, it's still the easiest choice for her to subsume herself in the will of someone else. She wanted to be a good attack dog even prior to Avery's influence. But he was wrong about one thing; treating her with softness isn't ruining her.

Skulduggery hums and she feels it in his ribs, that strange sourcelessness of his voice nonetheless resonating. Her life has been an exercise in yearning, in hunger, in wanting things she can't have. Comfort like this- she doesn't know what to do with it now she has it, when wanting it has been a foundation she's built herself upon. Where can she go from here? The lights have come on, there's no more hiding her weakness and her deficiency.

Something to work out in time. Darcy's gurgled breathing slows back to silence with his humming, her death-grip on him eases, and when she opens her eyes again, they don't immediately flood with tears. Still not saying anything, her cheek still pressed to his chest, eyes downcast. It would be easier staring up at the sun than to look at him right now.

Just because the storm has subsided doesn't mean it's passed entirely. He continues to soothe even as her grip loosens, trusting just for once that he's not making things worse. It may not come with a big speech or a dramatic fight, but that doesn't make him any less capable of offering this sort of protection.

He would normally use this moment to break the tension with a joke, but there isn't much worth joking about right now. Instead, he offers up some form of sincere consolation, however meager it might turn out to be.

"We're still here, and that's what matters. The rest will sort itself out."

"We're still here," Darcy repeats, and it's true. They're not dead yet, anything else can be sorted out.

Finally, glacially, Darcy looks up at his face, the cheekbones and hollow sockets, a lack-of-face that has become so comforting and familiar in the year-ish since they arrived.

"Thank you," she squeezes him a little to punctuate it, "for this, and everything. I'll... never be able to repay all you've done for me."

He doesn't deserve her thanks. He's led her on a wild goose-chase after the Captain's potential; no matter how much faith he has in his choices, he knows this will never play out the way he hopes it will. The change that everyone wants to see is simply never going to happen, and what distance they do gain from who the Captain was will never be far enough in most people's eyes. Darcy is one of the most sympathetic people on the ship, and even she still sees the gaps that Skulduggery's so much more willing to overlook.

Skulduggery squeezes back, loosening his hold only enough to make it easier for her to disengage. If he needs to sit here all afternoon, he will. There will the a point when she wants to be alone, but until then...

"You don't need to thank me. And you don't need to repay me. I'm just glad that you're here."

One of the crusades set off to follow a goose to the holy lands. Another was lead by children preaching peace, who were captured and sold into slavery. History is full of holy fools following their ideals off cliffs. Darcy probably doesn't even have that excuse anymore. She's following Skulduggery for the sake of following him. He wanted genuine belief in him, and he has it, now. The dead are taken care of, the living can take care of themselves, and they- being not quite either- take care of each other.

"I'm glad you're here too," and she can't even bring herself to joke about the spike pit.

"Come by again tomorrow, maybe? I... want to hang out with you without it being about saving the world."

"I can do that," he replies. "I'm pretty sure we'll have at least a week or two before something else breaks that we need to fix."

It's a joke, but only just barely. At this point, if it isn't him trying to make things right, it's going to be Darcy or Ava who picks up his slack.

"And in the meantime, if you feel like chewing your own arm off again, I'd recommend using a few of the trashy romance novels from the library instead. If you just want to hit something," maybe try Rita, "You'll be better off sticking with the punching bags in the gym. Those repair themselves after they get blown to bits."

Well, they used to, anyway...

"Oh-" he saw that, "no, I should be able to handle my shit better now. You helped. I'm gonna... take a day or two off. I think I'd go nuts if I tried to take a week off, but. I'll take a day."

A huff, "besides, I'm sure enough people are going to pick fights with me about all of this that I'll have plenty of options for hitting something."

"I'd like to hope that people will be too exhausted to start anything right away." If they're lucky, it'll take at least a week before the survival high wears off, but Skulduggery doubts their luck is going to hold out.

"But yes. A few days rest will be good for everyone." Everyone except him, of course, because if he stops for even a minute, he will surely expire on the spot. "I can't promise I'll be quick about it, but I'll let you know once I'm away from the bridge, in case you want company later."

You must fix your heart

let our bodies lay

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