the hope of morning

[tigermillionaire]

Who: Tiger, Pinkie, and Kido. Maybe others??
What: Tiger is scared and sad on Halloween night and so he sneaks into other people's rooms.
When: Morning of the 1st.
Where: Around the System Crash penthouse.
Warnings: Maybe discussion of child abuse but idk.

If it was even possible, Tiger gets more reclusive and emotionally frayed after his apparent exploits downtown. Jin doesn't go into details, but she comes back mad, and implies that he's run off into down in the middle of a press event. From the way that Tiger has been acting, it seems pretty likely he didn't really want to come back.

Trying to talk to him about it has been impossible recently - trying to talk to him in general has been impossible. Whatever spiral Tiger has gotten himself onto seems like it's only getting worse and worse.

Tiger is trying and failing to sleep for the 8th hour in a row when he starts having those weird thoughts again. It's impossible to describe, just like one moment life is one way, and the next, it's different. Dozing listlessly, he remembers the sound of thunder.

He was younger, then. By five years, at least. He remembers shivering in the back of a van, spooked by the sounds outside, and only composing himself as well as he is due to the presence of his dad next to him. He remembers him explaining why rain falls and why thunder cracks, and how in understanding something that scares you, you can find peace.

Before the absurdity of that idea can even set in, another flash of memory comes back to him, of staring out of that same van's window at a dark and sickly green sky. Something is chasing them, he thinks. But he is finding reasons to not be afraid.

Maybe when Peridot gets to Earth, she'll see how nice all the people are...and she won't wanna hurt anyone.

Just like his mother, he tells him.

Realizing it isn't real causes his entire body to seize. No nightmare could make him feel worse than he does right then, as that feeling of warmth and pride drains away from him. He starts crying right then and there, and just wishes that this would stop - that he could be sane again, like he was before. He's rather be angry than sad.

When he can't stand the silence anymore (or imagining the rain) he steps out into the hall for the first time in a while. When he arrives, he arrives completely unannounced.

Comments

[blindfoldcode]

Kido still isn't sleeping well. She's reached the point of exhaustion that eventually her body just shuts down, anyway, but she's easily awoken.

So when Tiger literally crawls into her bed, she's definitely being woken up. At least she doesn't still smell like cigarette smoke and paint fumes. She sits up and scrubs her eyes, grabbing at her phone to illuminate the situation.

"... Kid?" Yes. That's his name at the moment. She's struggling with words. "You okay?"

[tigermillionaire]

He's not exactly in the bed proper. Mostly, he just crawled onto the end of it, like he was planning on curling up down there like a cat. His eyes glisten a little when she signs the light on him, though - his expression is blank as if with depression or despair. He doesn't answer her question.

"Can I hang out here?" he asks instead, his voice smaller than usual, and more frail.

[blindfoldcode]

"Yeah, but..." She stares. This is not something she ever expected. She was pretty sure Tiger didn't like her much. "It might be more comfortable by the pillows."

[tigermillionaire]

"It doesn't matter," he says sadly, though he will crawl up the side of the bed a little so that he's closer to her before flopping down. He's still sniffling a little from the crying he'd been doing before. For whatever reason, huddling close to someone for comfort feels more acceptable than it has for a long time. Even if he's still afraid of the idea.

[blindfoldcode]

"Not feeling so hot?" She won't push him to talk about it, but she will give him an in, if he wants to. She's hesitant, but she reaches to put a hand on his shoulder.

[tigermillionaire]

He actually...lets her? Wow. What is happening.

All he can do is think over and over again about the memory of his dad holding him close as he explained the rain. A dad that doesn't even exist, really. In a place he's never been. Trying to tell himself that the place he's remembering doesn't exist is more heartbreaking than anything he's ever experienced.

I want to go home, he thinks, over and over again, but as far as he knows he doesn't have one, never really has. He wants to go home. He wants to go home.

"I want to go home," he mumbles very softly, unsure of if she'll even hear it. Maybe she shouldn't. She already knows about how his dad is. His real dad. The one he hates.

Why would he ever want to go back to that empty house?

[blindfoldcode]

... Oh boy. She watches him another few moments before she tosses the blanket over him because he needs more comfort than she know how to give.

"Yeah. I do, too, sometimes." She doesn't know what to say that can help. She wants to go home to a place where no one cares that she exists, outside of her ability to carry on the family name. "I think we all do."

[tigermillionaire]

"Do you..." It's hard for him to say the words. He doesn't feel like he's allowed to, or feels like if he does, she'll think he's crazy. "Do you ever feel like things aren't you remember them?"

He curls under the blanket, welcoming its presence.

[blindfoldcode]

It strikes something with her, something she knows that's right, but she's hesitant to respond, in case she's misunderstood.

"What do you mean?"

[tigermillionaire]

"I thought..." He trails off. He doesn't really know how to phrase it either. "I keep...thinking like...like things are different. From how I thought they were. Like I'm different."

[blindfoldcode]

She doesn't tell him he's acting different, because that's not going to help. She also doesn't BS him about how he's getting older, though she thinks about both.

"Yeah. I think I get it. Things have been weird lately for everybody, huh?"

[tigermillionaire]

He knows he's acting different - right now at least - but he feels like it's in some kind of fucked up crazy way, and opposed to just feeling like a different person. A younger person. He definitely doesn't feel like this is getting older or more mature. If anything he feels less so - less confident, less self assured.

Maybe less in general.

"It's more than just weird," he says grumpily, burrowing into the blanket. He's still shaking a little bit from the whole thing. He feels all broken like, like parts of his own identity don't connect anymore.

[blindfoldcode]

"Want to tell me about it?" She puts her hand on his shoulder again. She really, really feels bad for him right now. It's gotta be hard to navigate.

[sailorlaughter]

Pinkie's been sleeping pretty okay. Her dreams have been a lot more vivid lately, but none of them have really been upsetting so far.

The upsetting part, honestly, is when she wakes up, and her face feels the wrong shape and her legs are too long and thin beneath her, seemingly too few to ever possibly balance on. At first, it lasted only a few seconds, but the weird times are getting longer.

She pushes through. She's Pinkie - that's what she does. And if she lingers longer in her bed to get her sense of her own body back together before she goes out to see the band in the mornings, well, no one has to know.

Now though, she jerks awake and props herself up on an elbow. Her fingers aren't right; she keeps them curled against her palm, which makes her feel a little better, except that she just knocked her phone off the nightstand instead of successfully grabbing it. No biggie! She can tell who it is now anyway.

"Tiger? What is it?"

[tigermillionaire]

The question almost seems to startle him, which is dumb, given the fact that he's the one sneaking into her room. He huddles down a little closer to the mattress, looking like he would be more straight up ashamed if his head didn't feel so full of fog.

"I...I can't sleep," he says, and for a moment he can't fathom why he thought that that was her problem. Being here is stupid - there's nothing she can do for him, and there's nothing he should need. He just feels so alone in that huge empty room, he...

He sniffles.

[sailorlaughter]

"Oh! O-okay." She reaches out, her hand curled into an awkward ball, to touch his hair. It's half-baked, neither one thing nor the other; not the gesture she wanted. She uncurls her fingers.

It'll go away. "You can stay here with me and talk...or sleep or whatever."

[tigermillionaire]

He sort of bobs down a little bit in response to her just kind of putting her fist on his head, at least. What is with people always touching his hair like that? It's weird, and...it's weird. Part of him is outraged by it but part of him...just can't bring himself to be, at the moment.

"Thanks," he says softly, just sitting there for now. He should really leave. This is stupid, just waking her up for no reason. What does he even have to say at this point?

"Do you hate me?" he asks, completely unprompted.

[sailorlaughter]

She should sit up. Awkwardly, Pinkie thrashes around to a vaguely upright position. Okay, there, that's better. LOADS more normal and human and stuff!

"What?" She seems genuinely puzzled by the question. "No, I don't hate you!" And really, she doesn't. Tiger can be pretty tough to deal with sometimes, but it takes a lot to really bother her. He's only done it every now and then. Either way, she doesn't hate him. She doesn't hate anyone! "Why do you ask that?"

[tigermillionaire]

He falls quiet for a little while longer, unsure of how to voice what he's attempting to get at. Staring off into the dark, he tries to get his thoughts in order.

"Because..."

He trails off. He can't do this.

"A lot of people do."

[sailorlaughter]

"Awwwwww, Tiger." Pinkie puts an arm around his shoulder, scooting closer. "People don't hate you!"

Wow, that's totally not at all true, is it? She's not sure if she knows anybody who hate-hates him, but she knows a lot of people who don't like him. It's kinda just because of the way he acts. If he were anyone else, and this were something else, she might say as much...but he's just a little kid. Show business kinda screws kids up.

"Did somebody say something to you?"

[tigermillionaire]

"They tried to kill me, Pinkie!" he says miserably. He's pretty sure that people do. "They didn't even care, they just laughed."

He knows that both of them screwed up during that whole hazing thing - they'd both been in the loser bin more or less. Tiger is perhaps taking that as more of a truthful representation of his worth than is healthy.

[sailorlaughter]

"Wait, who did?"

Pinkie knew Tiger hadn't done any better than she did in that, of course. But he hadn't really been forthcoming with details, and she didn't want to pry into it.

[tigermillionaire]

Tiger curls up into a tighter ball, his gaze dropping. He suddenly regrets admitting that in the first place.

"Those...those guys from Junkyard Carnival," he says, his voice becoming more and more quiet as he speaks. "...One of them said I wasn't worth saving."

[sailorlaughter]

Well, Tiger being curled up in a ball makes it easier for Pinkie to hug him! She's got the feeling back in her arms now, so it's easy!

"Awwww, Tiger, I'm so sorry! You know those guys are like, total assholes, right?" Pinkie is rarely one for profanity. She doesn't even get angry much. But oh - she'd kinda like to know who said that. Who talks like that to anybody?

But being mad is secondary to hugging Tiger.

[tigermillionaire]

And he...lets her? Weird. He's so upset, he can't really resist the need for some comfort, even if his pride usually wouldn't allow it. It feels nice having someone's arms around him, even if he feels stupid and useless at the same time.

"I know," he mumbles, starting to shake. "I...I thought I was going to die and they were...they were going to be the only people who...they didn't even look at me and I couldn't breathe, and..."