hadriel_logs | Event Log: Is It a Wonderful Life?

Entry tags:

Event Log: Is It a Wonderful Life?

Who: All characters participating in the event
What: The event log for Is It A Wonderful Life? event
Where: All over the city
When: Jan 4th-8th
Warnings: None

Throughout the next few days, you may find yourself plagued by visions and dreams of back home. The dreams will be lifelike and difficult to tell apart from reality, as the world will be constructed from what you remember of your world. However, unlike usual dreams, you won't be present, and will find yourself unable to be seen or heard by those around you.

The dreams are vivid reminders of what might happen in a world without you: a world in which you disappeared when coming to Hadriel, a world which desperately needs you back for some reason or another. You may see your parents putting up missing posters, your significant other moving onto their next relationship, or even your hated villain finally taking over the world without you there to stop them.

When the vision leaves, you're back here and nothing about the city has changed. Though maybe you have a different outlook on it now...

► This log covers January 4th-Januray 8th.
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you try a weird solution to make it back home, please let us know here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Okay. Ephemera tips his head back and breathes. Stay focused, stay in the moment.

"Hey. It's me. You had a nightmare."

Sounds like it was a bad one. Ephemera inches closer and puts his hand on Drake's back, rubbing circles. Remembering what he used to do for his squad when they had bad nights. It happened. Sometimes the outbursts were violent but more often they were quiet and made worse for their seeming smallness. How Barrows would roll onto his side and cry, silently, for hours and refuse to look at anyone. How the twins would scream in their sleep and try to bolt when they woke up.

It happens. You deal. You stay calm so the other person can come back to themselves.

"It's okay. I'm not going anywhere. Can you take a deep breath for me?"

The question gets a head shake without said head being lifted, but Drake tries. Doesn't pull away, just sits there with his shoulders trembling as he tries to even his breathing. Stop crying, man. Just stop. It doesn't matter whether or not he's been there while Ephemera cried, he doesn't want to be seen like this. Even if the hand on his back is grounding, soothing.

If the dream was real, nothing should be able to soothe him, and so he feels bad about that too. But eventually the sobs stop and he goes still, breathing hard but calmer. More in control. He still doesn't lift his head, not yet.

"It was Ma."

"Okay. You're okay. Take your time."

Ephemera presses against him. Keeps rubbing circles with his hand. Sometimes the contact helps. Something that's easy to focus on. Wait until they come back, but make it as easy as you can.

It takes time. Ephemera waits. Keeps rubbing circles. Eventually, Drake goes still. Doesn't look up.

Oh.

"Okay," Ephemera says after a moment. Stay calm, center yourself. Break things into steps so you don't get lost in the emotion. You've done this before, so remember how it goes and do it again. "You want me to get you some water?"

He wants to hold Drake and ask what the fuck happened to make him sob like that, but doesn't. It won't help.

No, he doesn't want Ephemera to leave him alone, not even for the minute it would take to grab some water from the kitchen. He shakes his head again then finally lifts it, and is face is red, eyes swollen. He wipes at his cheeks with his sleeve almost angrily, like he can't believe he just did that -- he never cries. Doesn't begrudge anyone else who does, knows it can be helpful, but he's supposed to have his shit together. And it didn't feel helpful, he's just hollow now. Tired again but the last thing he wants to do is go back to sleep.

He turns towards Ephemera instead, seeking an awkward sideways hug where he buries his face in the crook between the other man's neck and shoulder.

"Don't go." Another shaky breath, trying to get some sense of control back. "I bet it's Sorrow, and I know it's not real but it could be and -- this one is fucking mean."

"Okay," Ephemera agrees, looping an arm around Drake and pulling him close. Proximity helps. He knows that. And they've had moments like this before, only in reverse. Usually, it's Ephemera who cries. Drake's always been more levelheaded, better able to look at a situation and keep his cool. Before, Ephemera thought that was a good thing. Now he's wondering just how much Drake has bottled up. "Hey, it's all right. Deep breath, yeah?"

Like that. Focus on one thing. The rest will come.

He reaches up, running a hand through Drake's short hair.

"I got you."

Keeping his cool is not a natural ability, for Drake. It's honed through years of experience, punishment, discipline. That one snap that nearly cost him everything had taught him he needed to be able to control himself, and then being a cop, being an undercover cop... sometimes it felt natural but deep down inside he's still that kid who snapped, one Ephemera got a glimpse of fairly recently. It's part of why he understands Ephemera's anger so well.

At least he doesn't bottle. He controls and lets it go -- the feelings don't linger and build anymore, not like they used to. It's healthy. He thinks it's healthy. But in a situation where he can let something he feels out safely... apparently he will. At least Ephemera won't judge him for it.

He does relax, slowly. His breathing evens out and he's fairly certain he won't cry again, even thinking about it. Which means he can talk about it.

"I think he's showing us what home would be like with us gone."

"...motherfucker," Ephemera murmurs, trying not to snap. He believes it, no question. But that's a cruel blow to strike. Crueler still to the ones like Drake, who have people missing them. The gods must have gotten hungry again.

Breathe. Keep steady.

Ephemera starts up on the circles again, rubbing them slow into Drake's back. Something constant, something simple and that doesn't hurt. "Your mom...?"

He can't imagine Drake's mother took it well. Can't lie and say it's a trick, not to worry about it, either. Ephemera knows better than most what grief can do to a person.

"A wreck." Which isn't surprising, but wasn't the worst of it. "There was a pill bottle on the table next to the booze. She's never taken anything like that before and I didn't see--" he chokes up again, forces it down and curls his fingers into Ephemera's shirt to have something to hold on to.

"There was nothing I could do."

That's. Worse than he'd expected.

Ephemera exhales slowly. Tries again to remember what he did with the twins, because there was a protocol the whole squad learned and they got it down. They managed, in the end. He'd loved the twins so much it hurt. It's a different sort of love than what he has with Drake, but it matters. This matters. The past, what he does right now, all of it.

He puts his hand on the back of Drake's neck, squeezing. Another focus point. Something other than the hurt.

All the while, Drake clings to him. Remembering the dream or the vision or whatever it is, either way seeing his mother struck low. What is he supposed to say in the face of all that?

"I'm sorry."

He pulls Drake closer.

"Maybe it was real, maybe it wasn't. But that was a shitty thing to see. And we'll do something about it, okay? We'll figure it out. But right now, just breathe for me, okay?"

"Probably wasn't," Drake manages. "But it felt it. And it could be..."

His mother relied on him for almost everything, Drake doesn't even need to say that. Ephemera knows it -- saw it himself, the last major event, when Drake showed him glimpses. She loved him unconditionally and more than life itself, so without him... Drake's breathing shudders again before he gets it under control, loosens his death grip a little. Tries to match his breathing to Ephemera's, which is steady and deep and even. He can do this. He's gonna have to get past it.

He just doesn't know how. So instead he just keeps talking, because it's better than crying.

"She told me not to take the job, she probably blames herself for not being able to talk me out of it, she doesn't know about everything else going on. It was only half the job... the rest was just me. If she does it, it's my fault. My choices. Fuck."

"It hurts," Ephemera agrees, softly. He won't lie. "Losing family, it hurts worse than anything. But we're gonna figure it out, Drake. We'll get you home and I'll get her flowers, and it'll be awkward at first but it'll work. What you saw, it hurts. I know. But she doesn't blame you for any of it."

He knows. He never blamed his squad.

He likes the sound of all that. Getting back home alive, Ephemera meeting her, as terrible as that's gonna go off the bat, letting things settle and having a probably halfway functional family. It sounds nice. He doesn't know how, but it's nice to think about. Unlike what Sorrow just fed him, basically his saddest possible nightmare.

"What if I blame me?" Drake asks softly, his fingers now curling in the hair at the nape of Ephemera's neck, just beside the implant.

That's the harder part. Ephemera sighs, bumping their foreheads together. "Then you have to try and forgive yourself. It took me a long time. But I help you. Promise."

"Most days I blame Blaine and Vaughn, or even Major. But I got myself into it, too, getting shot and scratched in the first place... all because I was helping Don E look for Vic's body. Because I kept my friends from prison, Ma told me not to do that, too, but they weren't bad people."

Drake shifts, feeling exhausted from the rush of emotion, wrung out from this confession. He wants to lie back down, but not alone.

"I don't regret how I died, just a bunch of the shit leading up to it. I did my best, it just... wasn't enough."

"You can't always know if you're making the right choices," Ephemera says softly. He never blamed Hunter or any of the others for dying. Never blamed himself for signing up and following them from one army to another, from a honorable discharge to all out mutiny. Those were the choices he made. Maybe they weren't the right ones, maybe he could have done better if he'd done things different, but they're done. Only thing is to survive them. Do the best he can in the aftermath. "You do your best. And we are. If your mom could see you now, she'd know that."

"Yeah... I know. All of that, really, you're right, I just... I guess we're always hardest on ourselves." Ephemera's right, it's things that are already done and can't be changed. He just has to live with them, and forgive himself the mistakes. Drake breathes for a moment, leaning on Ephemera, before pulling back and lying down again, reaching after the other man to join him as he curls up on his side. "C'mere. I'm sorry I woke you."

They settle back into the pillows. Outside, Ephemera can hear the wind banging against the spire. But right here, with the two of them, it's warm and safe. They'll be all right, he thinks. it was a hard moment and a cruel trick that the gods played. But they'll survive it. They'll stand together and face the uncertainty.

"Don't be," Ephemera tells him, reaching over to kiss Drake on the forehead. "You don't have to do this alone."

That gets Drake to smile again, and he winds his arm around Ephemera to pull him in close. Despite the wind outside battering the spire, the cold of this planet, they're fine in this room with their space heater and each other. And the lingering sorrow of the dream is finally fading. Talking about it helped, the distraction helps. He just isn't quite ready to fall back to sleep.

"Like you'd let me. Couldn't if I tried, right?"

Edited 2019-01-11 03:49 (UTC)

"Nah, you're stuck with me."

It goes both ways. Helps to say that, sometimes.

Ephemera shifts, pressing against Drake. It feels safe like this, being held. Took him a long time to feel safe out of armor, that he doesn't have to be on guard all the time and sleep on the floor, with the motion sensors activated just in case something comes charging out of the dark. Hadriel gets tricky, sometimes, but he's been worse places. Survived them.

Here, he thinks the good times outnumber the bad. Even when the gods send out shitty dreams to the people he cares about.

"I'm with you," Ephemera says, softly. "Always. That'll never change."

Drake goes still at that, his hand pausing where it was tracing the tattoos on Ephemera's back. It feels true, somehow, even though for awhile it wasn't. For awhile Ephemera was gone, but at the same time... he wasn't. There were reminders of him everywhere, and Drake refused to let them go. Would never forget him, would never forget what he felt.

"You know, sometimes... it feels like I brought you back here." He scoffs at himself, a soft huffing sound. "I know it's crazy, and I had nothing to do with it, but. It feels that way. Like I missed you enough the Door brought you back."

Ephemera sighs, closing his good eye. Maybe they'll talk for a while, maybe they'll sleep. Either way, he's pressed up against Drake and doesn't intend to move. Feels safe like this. "Wouldn't be so bad if you had."

Whether there was some design to it or they were just really fucking lucky, Ephemera doesn't care. He'll take it either way.

He runs his fingers up Drake's arm, lightly. "I'm happy, here. You know that? It took me a long time to remember what that was like."

"I knew you were. I mean, not all the time, but nobody's happy all the time. The good just won out." He goes back to tracing the tattoos, skimming over the scars. "Anything's better than what you went back to. We'll figure it out, like you said. We're not going back to being dead, I'm not... gonna let go."

"Yeah. The good won out."

He likes the sound of that. None of it was easy. They fought to get here. And they'll fight to get to a better future, for all of them. It sounds cheesy as all fuck in Ephemera's head, but he believes it just the same.

It's good to have that kind of certainty again. Comforting.

"We'll find a way, with your mom. I'm gonna get her flowers. Not roses. But something pretty. And then I'll be really fucking charming and not swear all the time, and -- it'll be awkward at first, yeah, but it'll work out. I got faith."

Drake blinks, then laughs softly. The sound is warm and genuine and endlessly fond -- Ephemera realizes he just swore while talking about not swearing, right? God help him, Drake thinks that's adorable.

"She loves camellias. Which is funny because one time when I was getting her some, the florist pointed out that the white ones' meaning is something about the bond between parent and child. I don't think she knows that, though. She just thinks they're pretty."

"Camellias," Ephemera repeats. He has no idea what those look like, but he can find out. "Fuck yeah."

And he's swearing again. Well, he'll work on that.

"Think she'd like 'em in a pot or a bouquet, or whatever?"

He's never actually given someone flowers before. But he'll figure it out.

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