dualislogs | Grace Is Gone

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Grace Is Gone

WHO: Nida Nomura, Some Closed Starters, Otherwise OTA
WHAT: Drinking with Wanda, Missing Persons Announcement, Dangerous habits
WHERE: Wanda's Room, Roof of Dorms
WHEN: August 1st - 7th
WARNINGS: Drinking, Grieving, Possible mentions of death and self-harm.

One Drink To Remember - Closed to Wanda

When he wakes up, bed mostly cold, arms empty, no noise from familiar breathing, his heart aches. This hadn't happened yet, not to someone he knew. Not so far as he knew. Because it definitely hadn't been a year. Not even close. Not even...

Within an hour he's gone to the store and come back, and is knocking on another door in the dorm. Pounding really. He's got a nice tall bottle of vodka, grief in his heart, and someone that needs to know before anyone else. Especially since he couldn't find their information on the network anymore.

Then Another To Forget - OTA

This isn't what he's supposed to do. He knows that. It's not healthy, it's not smart, and it's definitely not what he should be doing, but hey, who needs good life choices? In this case the choice manifests in the form of a young man lying on the edge of the building, a bottle of vodka near at hand, claimed every few minutes for a swig as he stares up at the sky above him.

Is this a risky place to be, especially tipsy? Hell yes. Does Nida care? No. But he does flinch when the door to the roof opens? Yes. Is that possibly bad? Yes.

"Close the door," he'll call, his voice a bit uneven. "You're letting the warm out."

Which he thinks is pretty funny, leaving him chuckling.

Network Post - Audio Only

[Definitely Nida's voice, but also very clearly slurred just enough to imply someone has been drinking. Probably more than he should. Which is any at all.]

For those who would care? Billy Kaplan and Tommy Shepherd are gone.

Filtered to Seifer

Yes, I know. You're disappointed and I shouldn't be drinking. Whatever. Can I borrow Eos for a few nights?

[OOC: Nida is going to be in a bad emotional state, and mostly walking through life a bit broken. He's cool to have custom starters for anyone, just directly message me, hit me on plurk

churbooseanon or discord (Churby#4290). I can have something ready rather easily.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What happened last time? Which last time. Enlighten me, brother mine, of what happened. I'll toast your memory. Hold on. Let me find the bottle.

Get your ass down here, or I go find you.

I'll be there. Later.

[Is that the sound of a bottle scraping against stone? Yep. He's a very bad person. Be disappointed. He doesn't care.]

[And that's the sound of Seifer getting up to go hunt him down.]

[He doesn't mean to make this difficult, Seifer. He just doesn't want to be seen in this backslide into grief. When he speaks next it's a whisper.]

Was I just too happy? Was that why they took him away?

[He's not pausing, he's going to continue his hunt. Nida needs to not be alone right now.]

I don't know.

[It's all he can offer. Honestly, who has the answer to that? No one except maybe the Head.]

Doubt it's personal. Even if it feels like it is. Where are you?

You're not gonna let me be alone.

[Stupid brother, stupid caring about him. Life was EASIER when he was just another cog in the Garden mechanisms. When he didn't care about people except for getting laid. I was easier when he didn't feel. Can he stop this stupid personhood ride? He wants to get off.]

Roof.

[Heights. Seifer wasn't wrong to say come down. He knows Nida well enough.]

Like you would me?

[Don't lie, he knows better. And no, he's not going to let Nida be alone to drink himself into a stupor and fall off the roof. Sorry Nids, he likes you alive, even if you are being a pain right now. He understands why. It's too late, there ain't no getting off this train we're on.]

Figured.

[It's where he was heading first. He'll be there soon, with a dog to help make things better.]

I'm annoying.

[Nida enunciates the words as if it's the most important point that could be made in the world. And hey, he wasn't ALONE when he started this path toward stupor. And don't go quoting Cloud at him, he won't know who it was who said that and think that Seifer's a philosophical genius.]

I do that. Lots. Annoy. 's my super power. And making this vodka disappear. Come have a sip?

You care.

[He corrects. Sure he might say annoying when Nida's sober and in a place to take it, right now is not that time. And he's totally quoting Cloud at him. You're welcome, Cloud and Barret the philosophers.]

Yeah, yeah, I'll have a sip. [If only to keep a few sips out of Nida.] And that's not your superpower. I'd say getting into stupid high places is your superpower.

I used stairs. Not super. And Jason's better.

[He thinks. He isn't certain. Note to self, take Jason climbing. But no, Jason would not approve of someone climbing while tipsy. Oh well.]

Should let him teach you to climb. Rather than just punch. But he punches well. I don't punch well. I hit things with sticks.

I'm not talking about right now. Hyne, don't be so literal.

[Why must there be so many stairs? Eos has to be carried, his tiny little legs don't like all these stairs.]

Why are we talkin' about punching and hittin' things with sticks now?

[Because the drunk brain makes terrible connections?]

Because I'm good for that. Climbing things and hitting things. That's what I am. Shouldn't try and be more, right? Someday I'll go home, and if I'm alive, that's all I'll be. Climbing and hitting.

[Ah, yes. Of course. Finally, eventually, he reaches the roof. It doesn't take him too much longer to find his drunken brother to go sit next to.]

You're more than that, Nida. I know you don't believe it now but you've believed it before. This isn't the end of the world.

[In the end, Nida knew Billy was going home without him didn't he? In a way this just... ripped off the bandage sooner.]

[Oh, there's a Seifer now. Nida puts his phone down and rolls off of the edge and onto the roof proper, so he can hold his hands out toward Eos. Or Seifer. He doesn't care, he just needs someone or something to hold.]

It is for me.

[They were supposed to go home together. Nida was going to live with him in New York. They were going to be together somewhere. Billy, who saved him from himself. Billy who he loved. Billy who...]

He went back without me. Where he's going to make up with his boyfriend. His real boyfriend. I saw it. In someone's memories. I didn't think...

[He didn't think it would be now. He didn't think it would be like this. He didn't... He just hurt so bad.]

No it isn't.

[He gets a Seifer, although he turns the tables because after he puts down Dog he's going to scoop Nida up to squeeze him against his chest instead. Nida can hug Eos.]

So there wasn't really any stopping it after all...

[Seifer had hoped that they'd be able to go together like they wanted. That Billy would remember these places once he was back. Were they all doomed to forget?]

I'm sorry.

[There's not much more he can offer.]

[This is good. This is a hug and Nida sinks into it. And despite how he hates the show of weakness, he presses his face against Seifer's shirt and doesn't hold back the tears of frustrated weakness. The pain. The agony.]

I-I was gonna ask him. Get him a ring. And ask him to just be mine while he still could be. Was gonna go out this morning.

[He'd been saving since he got here. He'd been scrimping and saving for this. And now? Now he's more alone than he was before he came to this place. Because he's lost both of the men he loved, and for what?]

I don't even... Someday they'll make us go home. I don't even know if I'm alive.

[Seifer would never hold it against him. Contrary to what they've been taught, emotions are a part of them. He'll just hug Nida tight and let him cry it out as long as he needs.]

Shit...

[Would another 'I'm sorry' be excessive? Probably? He'll just hug Nida tighter, talk about timing. Though perhaps it would have been more cruel to take him immediately after exchanging promises. Saying this right now probably wouldn't help matters.]

...I know. I'm scared too. Don't wanna go back.

[What if they forget all of this? He didn't want to lose everything that they'd gained from the village.]

[At least Seifer is, arguably, alive back home. Nida... doesn't know. He doesn't know anything anymore. He knows he has Seifer and Jason. That's it. The only things he has. And now he knows he has to go back. He has to go home. To forget the only good in his life in the form of his brothers and the man he had...]

What choice do we have?

[Fatalistic, yeah, that's just the situation he's in now. He has no choice but to go home. He has no option for peace. He has no chance to do anything, but be forced to walk through day after day here, with what to keep him moving?]

There's nothing left for me at Garden. There won't be you, there won't be Jason. There won't be anything but SeeD Nomura. I hate him.

[Probably. He can only hope that Nida is as well, even if they have no proof at this time. Nida does still have his brothers. They're still there to try to help him through this. All they can do is hope that when they get home they haven't forgotten everything.]

Not going back?

[It's dumb. They could stay there. Maybe? Eh, it'd be awful.]

If we do keep our memories, somehow. Come find me. You won't have to be him anymore.

[They'll set off away from Garden.]

[Nida isn't even going to dignify that with a response. Billy hadn't wanted to go home, unless he'd been lying to Nida. And they didn't do that. So he won't answer that suggestion. Just hold Seifer tighter. Because he doesn't get to keep this either, does he? They don't get anything good.]

I don't even know where you are.

[And yet officer Karen said she chose to stay, so maybe sometimes allowances were made. It's not completely out the window, Seifer thinks. Then again who knows what criteria the Head chooses to keep people around if they want.

Come on, they should sit, and let the crocdog curl up with them too. He's good at making everything better.]

If I remember I'll make sure you find out.

[Sit? Nope? Nida's here now. Seifer hugging him is too important. Moving even for Eos seems like the worst plan ever.]

Behemothshit. Because if you did, you would have. And you haven't. So you don't.

[Stupid worlds with predestination and time loops.]

[No? Okay. Stand and hug it is.]

Maybe I don't remember yet.

[He doesn't know what time frame all this happens in. Or if they've made weird time offshoots now and they're trying to catch up. Who knows? It doesn't make sense. Hyne, if only they could go somewhere else.]

[Eventually he'll sit. Maybe. Right now he hurts too much.]

Don't lie to me. Don't offer hope that doesn't exist.

Private|UN: Almasy

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