Good habits.
Wednesday, 26 December 2012 13:34![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Kinda yes, but also no.
26 December, 2012
The moon is in the waxing Full (Ahroun) Moon phase (89% full).
The moon's big. It finds Flint neither in his apartment nor in the breakroom, nor in the workshop, nor in the lobby, but neither has he left the tenement. The teen's downstairs, shirtless and in a pair of loose sweats, and despite the cool weather and that he hasn't turned on any heater in the basement apartment, building up a sweat with the punching bag. His form? Still not great, but practised and precise and with significant effort behind it. The young Glass Walker's jaw is clenched, tight.
The Galliard is not alone in coming down to the basement. Nieve lets herself in as well, though for differing reasons. She is quiet as she descends; not trying to be stealthy, but wearing sneakers and soft-stepped out of habit. She has shed her bulky jacket, happy in jeans and t-shirt, dreadlocks swaying a little and light glinting off the charms suspended therein. Only once she reaches the bottom of the stairs does she pause, hands on hips. "Requiem."
Flint pauses and stills the punching bag, quite clearly started as he turns around, then crouches to grab his sweatshirt from where it's nearby, gently brush a cockroach off of it, and quickly—very quickly—shrug it on. "Hi, Nieve-rhya," Flint offers, a fair bit breathless.
"Thanks again for the box. It's keeping some of my ritual bits safe," Nieve murmurs, tilting her head slightly. If she saw the signs of cutting she doesn't comment on them, though her eyes do narrow slightly. "You doin' alright?"
"The moon's big," Flint answers, moving over to grab a water bottle from the table and drink from it, catch his breath. It's a neither yes nor no answer as they go, and Flint glances at Nieve and offers a shrug. The sweatshirt is pulled a little tighter against the chill now that there's no exertion to keep the cliath warm. "I'm glad you like the box. I, it. I… like being able to make things as are, that are… special." One hand runs through his hair, and eventually he shrugs again. "Kinda yes, but also no."
"Also no?" Nieve prompts, the adren sprawling herself on one of the mats, scooping up some of the cockroaches from the floor and scattering them across her chest and legs. Apparently, she comes down here to commune with the boss.
Flint sits on the edge of the mat not far from the punching bag, and shrugs his shoulders. "Can't calm down. Can barely think enough to remember to talk. It's all a lot more for some reason, this month. Maybe because last year," Flint speaks slowly, carefully, as always, "this time, I didn't… have. Anything. And some days it's still really hard to believe. Or then, I feel… useless. Blame. What if. Every little thing that…" The cliath gets up, shrugs off the sweatshirt and lets it fall to the floor again, and starts to punch the bag. Not hard enough that the sound will be louder than anything Nieve says, just blowing off steam more.
"Come down 'ere," Nieve requests, motioning to the mat she is laying on, then the neighbouring mat. "Punchin' leather ain't gonna help right now. Get'cher ass on the floor."
Flint stills the punching bag, moving over to sit crosslegged by Nieve. Tension that's usually hidden by baggy shirts and oversized sweatshirts shows in every muscle on Flint's lanky frame, and there's a lot of it, coiled anger and fear and guilt all mixing together. "Nothing helps right now," he mutters.
"Lay back." Nieve props herself up on an elbow and gently scoops up a couple of the roaches, to place upon Flint's person once he does as he is told. "Now, you be careful. Can't make no sudden moves, or you'll squash one," she tells the cliath firmly. "Just breathe. Listen to them. Feel them. Hear cockroach."
Flint carefully lays back against the mat. At first the coiled tension is still there so much that it's like he might just snap at the next outburst, and then Flint breathes, enough to relax a little. He doesn't seem bothered by the cockroaches, even as they're on him, sets one hand to one side to carefully trail his fingers over another nearby. "'s all my fault and everyone blames me," comes the less than particularly voluntary thinking aloud. "'Cause I keep not getting my, my. Getting, my shit together, and. People, get. Get hurt."
"Then, get your shit together," is Nieve's mild but uncompromising reply. "What shit is out the that you ain't got a handle on?" she asks, before making faint clicking noises at one of the insects, earning a twitch of an antenna in reply.
Flint winces as the cockroach decides to climb right over the bandaging on his right arm, breath drawn in much more sharply for all that the wince doesn't seem to be a complaint. "I don't know how to keep it together, all the time. Feelings. Coping, not bottling things up until I… do something stupid." The cliath takes another deep breath, more steadying, fingers tapping out a rhythm for a moment. "Or, how. Other people see me, not letting that. I. Th' other day Sewall made me mad an' I… shoved him, and left. But. It was, I… acted before thinking. And then I try an' get my shit together and, get shit for, how, that, too. And then people get… hurt."
"Who is givin' you shit about it?" Nieve's question cuts right to the heart of Flint's fumbling words, her gaze drawn to his arm as Cockroach makes an unsubtle point perhaps.
Flint takes another breath in. "It's a direct order, from. Mouse that. Get my shit together and stop…" he shakes his head. "And I tried to, and I'd not for… but then I tried, I was, talking to Salem-rhya about it. Just, talking and something, and I frenzied and he frenzied, and Mouse-rhya got hurt. And it's, my fault, so Riley's being a dick about it, and, blame, and. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it's the only way for a bit, but she told me not to."
"Then stop." Nieve's reply is deceptively soft-spoken. "Be tough with yourself. Banish long sleeves an' cuffs. An easy promise to make, an' one that leads to other things," she suggests then, as mildly. "But if you must. Absolutely must. Do it in glabro. Then they heal quick. The pain you get, the weakness you don't."
The cliath nods, quiet and clearly thinking for a long moment. Carefully, Flint brushes away a few cockroaches to either side, shifts up slowly until he reaches glabro. The cockroach is moved from the now too-tight bandages until Flint can get them off, and he stays in that form long enough to heal before shifting down equally slowly to his birth form. "Easy to make, hard to keep. It's cold up here. I'm… not good at being accountable to myself on things, really. I prefer ending up, not thinking, however temporarily it. It is."
The adren tilts her head at Flint. "Then be accountable to me. Now I ain't stick-sittin', I'll be around the tenement more. Every mornin', you come and see me. We talk. You show me your wrists, tell me anythin' that is makin' waves." It sounds like an offer rather than an order, at least.
Flint considers this, and then nods. "I'm also trying not to… not to drink, when the moon's big, or when it's for… coping rather than. Even though it's there, in the breakroom, and such," the teen eventually says, in between slow, steady breaths and tracing fingers over where the cuts were but no longer are. "Because it. Just, it… to the point of, stupid instead of. Useful. Salem-rhya said, talked about. Not using one thing, for another. And he's… right. I know that, just that when sometimes. With, all the… anger, all the… everything, like it's turned up to a million, I act before I remember, or before I think. I… thanks. Yeah. That will, help."
"Well, s'easy enough to fix," Nieve replies dryly. "Though you won't like the solution. In fact, most people hate it. But, assumin' you arn't addicted, there's an easy enough way to keep you off the drink."
Flint raises his eyebrows and turns to look at Nieve. "Don't know if, or not. One thing for another, for another. Addiction opens up the door for, the Wyrm." The last sentence is distinctly the echo of what Flint's been told, but a level of self-awareness that Flint clearly doesn't like having, because though he'd relaxed enough in laying down, he's tense all over again, enough to startle one of the cockroaches that'd settled on him. "Cutting. Drinking. I… try not to be."
"It does. And that is bad," Nieve affirms quietly. "So. You will come and see me every morning. You will tell me what has happened in the last twenty four, including any cutting, drinking, sniffing glue or licking toads. We will discuss anythin' that is creating bad juju for you, and then we will repeat the next day. Si?"
"Yeah," Flint agrees, managing a half-smile, tired and grateful more than anything else. "Thanks. It's… less daunting, not… all by myself with it. All by myself I just… lapse." There's a deep breath. "Ky and Lex… I. Ky don't need my problems right now, not when mine and his get so close." A deep breath, and Flint carefully picks up one of the cockroaches, cradling it in his hand, starts to hum. It's distinctly the same rhythm as before, like the bone rhythms pattern for Cockroach, put to wordless music. "This. Helps more than hitting leather," the teen admits, wryly.
"We are pack animals. Even if you an' I are not pack, we are siblings through Cockroach," Nieve replies mildly, nodding a little. "It is how I meditate. Come down here, make myself still for cockroach, stare at a screensaver on my phone for an hour or so. Clears the mind, calms the body."
Flint glances at Nieve and nods, the humming resuming very faintly in one of the silences. "With the moon like this all I want to do is, go kill something, or sometimes everything, some. But this is, better." Words fade to silence, the teen reaching to grab his sweatshirt and carefully make a pillow of it, pulling a military-style coin and a fairly sized piece of clear quartz both from an interior pocket to clench in one hand, still a little more tightly than useful but he's relaxed, significantly, from when they started.
The older Walker nods. "You have more anger than I. I was always calmer, clearer, than my pack. But the principle remains," she murmurs lowly. "Let the bugs help you. Lord knows it's all they are good for on this side of the veil," she remarks then with a wry smile.
Flint settles, running his finger along the edge of the coin, and equally letting one of the cockroaches investigate it. There's a grin. "Yeah. Not as much as some, but I… have to acknowledge it, or. Or when I don't, my coping mechanisms in the past have kind of sucked. And the Rage makes it… really easy to want to not think."
"New rule. When you talk to me, we will be down here. Meditating before. That will get you into good habits. How does nine-am sound?" Nieve asks, though it isn't really a question.
Flint nods. "I usually. Meditate some in the, in the ritual room, but, I… get impatient, too," the cliath admits with a grin. "While ago, Mouse-rhya said, meditate on Cockroach and on Wisdom. And I… I do, e-every day. Sometimes through Dance of Lights, sometimes Artwork, sometimes just… thinking, an hour, when I can carve it out… Doing so down here, might. Work better. More cockroaches down here." There's a faint grin.
The older Walker nods, and then gently divests herself of cockroaches before pushing to her feet. "Alright. Stay down here for a bit an' meditate. I'll see you tomorrow mornin'."
26 December, 2012
The moon is in the waxing Full (Ahroun) Moon phase (89% full).
The moon's big. It finds Flint neither in his apartment nor in the breakroom, nor in the workshop, nor in the lobby, but neither has he left the tenement. The teen's downstairs, shirtless and in a pair of loose sweats, and despite the cool weather and that he hasn't turned on any heater in the basement apartment, building up a sweat with the punching bag. His form? Still not great, but practised and precise and with significant effort behind it. The young Glass Walker's jaw is clenched, tight.
The Galliard is not alone in coming down to the basement. Nieve lets herself in as well, though for differing reasons. She is quiet as she descends; not trying to be stealthy, but wearing sneakers and soft-stepped out of habit. She has shed her bulky jacket, happy in jeans and t-shirt, dreadlocks swaying a little and light glinting off the charms suspended therein. Only once she reaches the bottom of the stairs does she pause, hands on hips. "Requiem."
Flint pauses and stills the punching bag, quite clearly started as he turns around, then crouches to grab his sweatshirt from where it's nearby, gently brush a cockroach off of it, and quickly—very quickly—shrug it on. "Hi, Nieve-rhya," Flint offers, a fair bit breathless.
"Thanks again for the box. It's keeping some of my ritual bits safe," Nieve murmurs, tilting her head slightly. If she saw the signs of cutting she doesn't comment on them, though her eyes do narrow slightly. "You doin' alright?"
"The moon's big," Flint answers, moving over to grab a water bottle from the table and drink from it, catch his breath. It's a neither yes nor no answer as they go, and Flint glances at Nieve and offers a shrug. The sweatshirt is pulled a little tighter against the chill now that there's no exertion to keep the cliath warm. "I'm glad you like the box. I, it. I… like being able to make things as are, that are… special." One hand runs through his hair, and eventually he shrugs again. "Kinda yes, but also no."
"Also no?" Nieve prompts, the adren sprawling herself on one of the mats, scooping up some of the cockroaches from the floor and scattering them across her chest and legs. Apparently, she comes down here to commune with the boss.
Flint sits on the edge of the mat not far from the punching bag, and shrugs his shoulders. "Can't calm down. Can barely think enough to remember to talk. It's all a lot more for some reason, this month. Maybe because last year," Flint speaks slowly, carefully, as always, "this time, I didn't… have. Anything. And some days it's still really hard to believe. Or then, I feel… useless. Blame. What if. Every little thing that…" The cliath gets up, shrugs off the sweatshirt and lets it fall to the floor again, and starts to punch the bag. Not hard enough that the sound will be louder than anything Nieve says, just blowing off steam more.
"Come down 'ere," Nieve requests, motioning to the mat she is laying on, then the neighbouring mat. "Punchin' leather ain't gonna help right now. Get'cher ass on the floor."
Flint stills the punching bag, moving over to sit crosslegged by Nieve. Tension that's usually hidden by baggy shirts and oversized sweatshirts shows in every muscle on Flint's lanky frame, and there's a lot of it, coiled anger and fear and guilt all mixing together. "Nothing helps right now," he mutters.
"Lay back." Nieve props herself up on an elbow and gently scoops up a couple of the roaches, to place upon Flint's person once he does as he is told. "Now, you be careful. Can't make no sudden moves, or you'll squash one," she tells the cliath firmly. "Just breathe. Listen to them. Feel them. Hear cockroach."
Flint carefully lays back against the mat. At first the coiled tension is still there so much that it's like he might just snap at the next outburst, and then Flint breathes, enough to relax a little. He doesn't seem bothered by the cockroaches, even as they're on him, sets one hand to one side to carefully trail his fingers over another nearby. "'s all my fault and everyone blames me," comes the less than particularly voluntary thinking aloud. "'Cause I keep not getting my, my. Getting, my shit together, and. People, get. Get hurt."
"Then, get your shit together," is Nieve's mild but uncompromising reply. "What shit is out the that you ain't got a handle on?" she asks, before making faint clicking noises at one of the insects, earning a twitch of an antenna in reply.
Flint winces as the cockroach decides to climb right over the bandaging on his right arm, breath drawn in much more sharply for all that the wince doesn't seem to be a complaint. "I don't know how to keep it together, all the time. Feelings. Coping, not bottling things up until I… do something stupid." The cliath takes another deep breath, more steadying, fingers tapping out a rhythm for a moment. "Or, how. Other people see me, not letting that. I. Th' other day Sewall made me mad an' I… shoved him, and left. But. It was, I… acted before thinking. And then I try an' get my shit together and, get shit for, how, that, too. And then people get… hurt."
"Who is givin' you shit about it?" Nieve's question cuts right to the heart of Flint's fumbling words, her gaze drawn to his arm as Cockroach makes an unsubtle point perhaps.
Flint takes another breath in. "It's a direct order, from. Mouse that. Get my shit together and stop…" he shakes his head. "And I tried to, and I'd not for… but then I tried, I was, talking to Salem-rhya about it. Just, talking and something, and I frenzied and he frenzied, and Mouse-rhya got hurt. And it's, my fault, so Riley's being a dick about it, and, blame, and. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it's the only way for a bit, but she told me not to."
"Then stop." Nieve's reply is deceptively soft-spoken. "Be tough with yourself. Banish long sleeves an' cuffs. An easy promise to make, an' one that leads to other things," she suggests then, as mildly. "But if you must. Absolutely must. Do it in glabro. Then they heal quick. The pain you get, the weakness you don't."
The cliath nods, quiet and clearly thinking for a long moment. Carefully, Flint brushes away a few cockroaches to either side, shifts up slowly until he reaches glabro. The cockroach is moved from the now too-tight bandages until Flint can get them off, and he stays in that form long enough to heal before shifting down equally slowly to his birth form. "Easy to make, hard to keep. It's cold up here. I'm… not good at being accountable to myself on things, really. I prefer ending up, not thinking, however temporarily it. It is."
The adren tilts her head at Flint. "Then be accountable to me. Now I ain't stick-sittin', I'll be around the tenement more. Every mornin', you come and see me. We talk. You show me your wrists, tell me anythin' that is makin' waves." It sounds like an offer rather than an order, at least.
Flint considers this, and then nods. "I'm also trying not to… not to drink, when the moon's big, or when it's for… coping rather than. Even though it's there, in the breakroom, and such," the teen eventually says, in between slow, steady breaths and tracing fingers over where the cuts were but no longer are. "Because it. Just, it… to the point of, stupid instead of. Useful. Salem-rhya said, talked about. Not using one thing, for another. And he's… right. I know that, just that when sometimes. With, all the… anger, all the… everything, like it's turned up to a million, I act before I remember, or before I think. I… thanks. Yeah. That will, help."
"Well, s'easy enough to fix," Nieve replies dryly. "Though you won't like the solution. In fact, most people hate it. But, assumin' you arn't addicted, there's an easy enough way to keep you off the drink."
Flint raises his eyebrows and turns to look at Nieve. "Don't know if, or not. One thing for another, for another. Addiction opens up the door for, the Wyrm." The last sentence is distinctly the echo of what Flint's been told, but a level of self-awareness that Flint clearly doesn't like having, because though he'd relaxed enough in laying down, he's tense all over again, enough to startle one of the cockroaches that'd settled on him. "Cutting. Drinking. I… try not to be."
"It does. And that is bad," Nieve affirms quietly. "So. You will come and see me every morning. You will tell me what has happened in the last twenty four, including any cutting, drinking, sniffing glue or licking toads. We will discuss anythin' that is creating bad juju for you, and then we will repeat the next day. Si?"
"Yeah," Flint agrees, managing a half-smile, tired and grateful more than anything else. "Thanks. It's… less daunting, not… all by myself with it. All by myself I just… lapse." There's a deep breath. "Ky and Lex… I. Ky don't need my problems right now, not when mine and his get so close." A deep breath, and Flint carefully picks up one of the cockroaches, cradling it in his hand, starts to hum. It's distinctly the same rhythm as before, like the bone rhythms pattern for Cockroach, put to wordless music. "This. Helps more than hitting leather," the teen admits, wryly.
"We are pack animals. Even if you an' I are not pack, we are siblings through Cockroach," Nieve replies mildly, nodding a little. "It is how I meditate. Come down here, make myself still for cockroach, stare at a screensaver on my phone for an hour or so. Clears the mind, calms the body."
Flint glances at Nieve and nods, the humming resuming very faintly in one of the silences. "With the moon like this all I want to do is, go kill something, or sometimes everything, some. But this is, better." Words fade to silence, the teen reaching to grab his sweatshirt and carefully make a pillow of it, pulling a military-style coin and a fairly sized piece of clear quartz both from an interior pocket to clench in one hand, still a little more tightly than useful but he's relaxed, significantly, from when they started.
The older Walker nods. "You have more anger than I. I was always calmer, clearer, than my pack. But the principle remains," she murmurs lowly. "Let the bugs help you. Lord knows it's all they are good for on this side of the veil," she remarks then with a wry smile.
Flint settles, running his finger along the edge of the coin, and equally letting one of the cockroaches investigate it. There's a grin. "Yeah. Not as much as some, but I… have to acknowledge it, or. Or when I don't, my coping mechanisms in the past have kind of sucked. And the Rage makes it… really easy to want to not think."
"New rule. When you talk to me, we will be down here. Meditating before. That will get you into good habits. How does nine-am sound?" Nieve asks, though it isn't really a question.
Flint nods. "I usually. Meditate some in the, in the ritual room, but, I… get impatient, too," the cliath admits with a grin. "While ago, Mouse-rhya said, meditate on Cockroach and on Wisdom. And I… I do, e-every day. Sometimes through Dance of Lights, sometimes Artwork, sometimes just… thinking, an hour, when I can carve it out… Doing so down here, might. Work better. More cockroaches down here." There's a faint grin.
The older Walker nods, and then gently divests herself of cockroaches before pushing to her feet. "Alright. Stay down here for a bit an' meditate. I'll see you tomorrow mornin'."