Rae "Sunshine" Seddon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sunbaked_baker) wrote2020-11-11 09:54 pm
sunbaked_baker) wrote2020-11-11 09:54 pm
Entry tags:
OOM: Light shows on our foolish way, and darkness on our aftermath
The knot into which Sunshine had bound away all of her grief so she could focus on caring for A-Yuan, to be there for the sick child who had lost so much already, began threatening to unravel the moment the door had shut with Lan Wangji and A-Yuan settled in Abe no Seimei's room. Suddenly without immediate needs driving her actions, without some immediate threat to orient herself around, Rae had found herself truly alone for the first time in... weeks.
The silence upon her return to her room was nearly deafening.
Leaning with her back against her closed door - alone with only that knot of grief for company - the thought of undoing that intricate knot felt less like a good idea and more like a failure, falling apart, losing it. Sunshine wanted to resist, to hold herself together - grieving hurt, and if she let herself fall apart, who knew how long it'd take her to come back together again? But some part of her, remembering the false comfort of burning to ash and being nothing, of distancing grief with smoke and alcohol, knew that was what Rae had been doing all through these weeks. Adding new knots with every new pang of loss, bundling away every thought that threatened to undo her. Out of necessity, yes, but untenable, in the long run. Sunshine knew as much.
So she had made herself hear the silence of her room. Rae slowly lowered herself down to sit on the floor with her back to her door, just listening to herself breathe - unwinding the tangled, painful thoughts with care and dread until her breaths had become heavier, and uneven, and the first strands of the knot unraveled.
Like progress in undoing any complicated knot, like progress in solving a puzzle, the grief came in waves. Sunshine soon dissolved into mourning, sobbing hard, breaths ragged, murmured words unintelligible, unable to stem the flow of tears for a long time. But sometimes the tide would ebb. After particularly hard waves of grief, she would sit, her uneven breathing the loudest thing in the room, her forehead pressed to her bent knees, until some new painful thought would be released and the tears would rise again. She eventually moved from the hard floor to her bed, dampening her pillow with her slightly more muffled tears, but if she slept she doesn't remember it.
It is probably the next day when she comes back to herself, not-quite-waking in not-quite-peace. The pain is still there; there are still knots waiting to be undone, but the waves are gentler, and she is... more or less functional, for now.
She doesn't want food, doesn't want to venture out, but some parts of the brain don't take orders from her. Rae makes herself get up. Makes herself wash her face, and though it wipes away the salt-tracks from her face it does little for her red-rimmed eyes. She can't quite make herself change clothes, however rumpled she looks, so she ventures downstairs via the outside bypass stairs that lead more easily to the kitchen.
There, still on auto-pilot, she puts water on to heat for tea.
The silence upon her return to her room was nearly deafening.
Leaning with her back against her closed door - alone with only that knot of grief for company - the thought of undoing that intricate knot felt less like a good idea and more like a failure, falling apart, losing it. Sunshine wanted to resist, to hold herself together - grieving hurt, and if she let herself fall apart, who knew how long it'd take her to come back together again? But some part of her, remembering the false comfort of burning to ash and being nothing, of distancing grief with smoke and alcohol, knew that was what Rae had been doing all through these weeks. Adding new knots with every new pang of loss, bundling away every thought that threatened to undo her. Out of necessity, yes, but untenable, in the long run. Sunshine knew as much.
So she had made herself hear the silence of her room. Rae slowly lowered herself down to sit on the floor with her back to her door, just listening to herself breathe - unwinding the tangled, painful thoughts with care and dread until her breaths had become heavier, and uneven, and the first strands of the knot unraveled.
Like progress in undoing any complicated knot, like progress in solving a puzzle, the grief came in waves. Sunshine soon dissolved into mourning, sobbing hard, breaths ragged, murmured words unintelligible, unable to stem the flow of tears for a long time. But sometimes the tide would ebb. After particularly hard waves of grief, she would sit, her uneven breathing the loudest thing in the room, her forehead pressed to her bent knees, until some new painful thought would be released and the tears would rise again. She eventually moved from the hard floor to her bed, dampening her pillow with her slightly more muffled tears, but if she slept she doesn't remember it.
It is probably the next day when she comes back to herself, not-quite-waking in not-quite-peace. The pain is still there; there are still knots waiting to be undone, but the waves are gentler, and she is... more or less functional, for now.
She doesn't want food, doesn't want to venture out, but some parts of the brain don't take orders from her. Rae makes herself get up. Makes herself wash her face, and though it wipes away the salt-tracks from her face it does little for her red-rimmed eyes. She can't quite make herself change clothes, however rumpled she looks, so she ventures downstairs via the outside bypass stairs that lead more easily to the kitchen.
There, still on auto-pilot, she puts water on to heat for tea.
no subject
He stood there, still dry eyed after all this time. The shock was lingering, or maybe the fact he had begun to let his mind wander to things better left unthought left him with a sense of purpose. Maybe he'd cracked.
In the end, he did not raise a hand. He did not ask to share her grief with her. That was an ugly wail, the type you made when no one else was listening, no one was there to watch you break down. He'd made that sound the first time Lupin faked his death, so he knew it when he heard it.
Zenigata went back down the hall, mind wrapped up with plans. He didn't want Sunshine to cry, for Abe to grieve. He didn't want those things for himself, either. Which meant something had to change. There had to be a way to fix this. He was in Milliways, after all. Anything could happen here. Anything. One didn't need to be Lupin to attain the impossible. It was here, anybody could find it.
Which meant Zenigata had to go looking.
...after some drinking and other bad choices. Once he'd cleared the taste from his emotional palate. Then, he'd find a way to do the impossible. After he let himself get sloppy shitfaced.
After.