riverviewlogs | (closed) god, it’s been a hell of a week

(The sight of him crying tamps the anger so suddenly she feels like she has whiplash. She stops in front of the bubble, staring at him and his fist slams into the surface near her face. She doesn't flinch; her expression crumples, and she reaches out, touches the curve of the bubble with her fingertips.

She can hardly speak for the lump in her throat.)

I couldn't– (She has to stop, close her eyes for a long moment, try to collect herself. She can hear him crying on the other side of the shield, slightly muffled, and her heart feels like it might break from the pain of it.)

I didn't know where to put you. I– you deserve, always, to be loved, Taako, and I couldn't think of anywhere else to leave you but at the stagecoach. I wanted you to be– (she blinks, hard, and has to thumb away a tear that snakes down her cheek,) surrounded by people who would always adore you, admire you. I wanted everybody in the world to see you, or to have a chance to know you as I did.

(But she can understand the loneliness of that decision, the absence of Lup tearing at him. A life on the road that was, perhaps, not always so glamorous. She exhales shakily and wipes her eyes before closing them, exhausted. But his tone turned pleading makes her eyes snap open again and she slowly shakes her head.) I didn't.

[When she touches the bubble he jerks back as if it might burn him, because he doesn't want anything like sympathy from her, doesn't want her to even see him like this now, pathetic and vulnerable and everything he hates being. It was easier to be angry until he pushed it too far into something else, until he took such a low blow that something like guilt started to creep in.

The answers that come don't change anything. So she thought that fame could cover the hole in his heart that Lup left behind? That's no better than thinking he didn't deserve a home, both are wrong, so staggeringly wrong that he can't even begin to put it into words. Lucretia will never know what it felt like, to be without half of himself, she can be sorry and she can feel guilty and she can try to understand, but she'll never truly know, and that's what it all boils down to.

Taako steels himself, raising his hands to cast cone of cold.

Freezing air swirls in the bubble, biting at his own skin, hurting him, but he's putting his faith in this: Lucretia will do a lot of things, but she won't let him kill himself.]

(She can't tell if anything she's saying is having an affect on him, but she's guessing probably not, the way he's pulled back from the edge of the shield and looked away from her. There's only so much she can do, Lucretia thinks dully, and rests her forehead on the surface of the bubble for a moment, and then– what else is there? It is desperately hard to think that she'll have to get used to the reality of him never forgiving her. It's not unreasonable of him by any standard, but Lucretia knows there will always be a very small and miserable part of her that will forever wish things could some how be different. Some how she must learn to smother it. But how is she supposed to let him go for good? The anguish is near crippling; the loss of a brother, one sixth of her heart.

The bubble is cold underneath of her skin and when she opens her eyes, Taako half-frozen in its center.)

Taako– (Panic explodes in her chest, catching in her throat and she dissolves the bubble immediately,) Stop! Stop– (Dispel magic puts an end to the cone of cold no problem but when she puts her hands on his arms his frozen skin stings her palms and she jerks back, horrified, tears springing into her eyes anew.) What are you doing–

F-fuck you.

[He doesn't even know why he's still fighting her when all the red hot anger has turned to ashes in his mouth, when all he wants to do is go home to Lup and hold onto her until he stops feeling like she's going to slip through his fingers. Hurting Lucretia won't make him hurt any less, but he's put so much into this fight now that he wants to win, as if somehow that justifies what he's done and what he's said to her in the heat of the moment.

So he's out of the bubble and he's pretty sure he's on the edge of passing out but he gathers the last of his strength to cast prismatic spray, right in her face.]

(She's desperately trying to think of something she can do as he sags where he stands, running through her spell slots in her head and for anything that will help. Why do so many of her spells have to be defensive? They are good for nothing once the damage has already been done.

His prismatic spray comes out of nowhere and hits her solidly in the face, momentarily blinding her with a flash of green light. Lucretia staggers backwards, stunned, blinking hard to try and get rid of pale green filter over her vision. Her glasses really are useless; she takes them off. Aside from the mild irritation of having taken a hit to the face, she seems absolutely fine.)

It's over, Taako. (Her voice is quiet, albeit tremulous.) You look like you're about to faint– let me take you home.

[Lucretia is almost right; he doesn't quite faint, but he does lose the strength too keep upright and he drops to one knee, managing to get the umbra staff down in time that he can brace against it, breathing hard as pain bursts across his skin.

It took longer than he expected for her to break the bubble and he took too much damage from his own damn spell in the meantime.]

Don't touch me.

[It's petulant, childish, but he doesn't care right now. The idea of her helping him up or giving any kind of shit about him makes his skin crawl, he'd rather pass out on the goddamn grass.

(He wishes he'd never asked about Sazed, now that he knows it wasn't her doing, the only person to blame is himself.)]

I won't.

(Not if he doesn't want her to. She'll message Lup to come and get him, stay there until she comes. As if she wants to be here with him either: but the shock of the whole encounter has settled over her like a blanket and she's numb now to the anger and hurt of it all, even as she brushes tears away. She did this to him. Lup is going to be furious and she'll deserve that, too.)

[Not being able to run away is killing him, especially not when he's bleeding from where some of his frozen skin has cracked, not when there are still tears stinging his eyes and mascara stains on his cheeks. Without realizing, he's lost the grip on his disguise spell, not that it matters all that much in the wake of everything else.

He knows that Lucretia will get Lup, it's the sensible thing to do, but his thoughts echo her own in that respect as well. Lup is going to furious at both of them, he's fairly sure, because there was no reason for him to pick this fight except for his own petty anger.

All he wants is to crawl away to lick his wounds in peace.

Taako reaches for the spell to pull Garyl into existence, but he doesn't have the strength for it, not when he's used so much magic and taken so much damage.]

Son of a bitch...

[It's muttered to himself, as he finally gives up on any kind of dignity and lets himself slump the rest of the way to the ground.]

(When he finally hits the ground Lucretia exhales sharply, sinking to her knees beside him and closing her eyes. She is barely hurt in comparison; this had not been a fair fight. She shouldn't have lost her temper. Thankfully everybody in the general area of where they had been fighting has scattered. It gives her time to sit, and to breathe, and think of her next move with her head in her hands.

If not for her overwhelming need to be alone, Lucretia might have sat there and cried bitterly. Instead, she sucks in a deep breath, waits for the panic to loosen its stranglehold on her chest. Pulls her phone out. The text she sends Lup may be a little startling, but she's sure to include the coordinates so her brother can be found. He's a sorry sight stretched out prone across the grass, blood on his arms. Lucretia dully shucks her coat off and throws it over his shoulders, tucking it in around him to help with the thawing before she gets to her feet.

She should stay, until Lup gets here. She should.

She can't.)

I'm sorry, (she says shortly. She can't tell if he's out cold or not, and can't tell if she wants him to be able to hear her or not. Everything feels so complicated, so jammed up inside of her, twisted tight. She shoves her hands into her pockets.) I'm sorry, (she repeats, and then,) I love you. (Because she always will.

She casts magic circle about him to keep him from harm until Lup comes, and then she leaves. She goes back to their house in a haze and packs up her things, using magic wherever possible to speed up the process. She collects her clothes from the floor, her books left strewn about the living room, her toothbrush from the bathroom. It's amazing how much her things had managed to spread to all corners of the house in such a short amount of time. She'd lived here, what, three months? She doesn't bother to enter Taako or Lup's room, however, so anything they've borrowed from her will be something she'll just have to replace.

Lucretia has no idea what she's doing; she has no other place lined up. All she knows is she can't, for a moment longer, be here. She'll have to stay at the office until she can find somewhere to go. She finishes packing up her things and then sits on a box in the middle of the hallway as she puts her shoes back on and has to press her face into her hands tightly again just to hold it all together: just a little bit more. She digs her fingernails into her scalp until it hurts, until she can think clearly again. The last step is her key. It ends up on the little table in the hallway.

Lucretia takes her bag, hefts her single box in both arms, lets herself out of the door, and is gone.)

[There's no need for death saving throws; Lucretia did a fair bit of damage and he did more himself, but not quite enough to knock him completely unconscious, just enough to make anything more than curling up no the ground a struggle and a goddamn half. He feels the weight of the coat and has to fight the urge to shove it off, if only because he's not sure he'd have the strength to manage it and the idea of losing a fight with a coat is a little too much to bear.

Listening to Lucretia's apologies are definitely too much, he squeezes his eyes shut and hopes that she'll just leave him here. And then she does, and that stings more than any physical pain, right now.

She just left him. It's what he deserves, but not what he expected from her.

Taako manages to roll out his back, tugging the coat with him, until he's staring up the sky and says, to no one in particular,] I love you, too.

(closed) god, it’s been a hell of a week

hey? this? is bad now maybe

this is bad now definitely

dhjsdhJDG STOP

you stop!!!

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