(no subject)
I...
I'unno.
Title: Mindful
Series: haha. What? I don't fucking know. It's a mesh of everything possible.
Rating: PG-13, I guess.
Summary: Alba wants to write. Something is wrong. She talks to muses. Or, really, they talk to her.
Scenarios are easy to think up of. Imagination comes with ease for a child, and even at this age, Alba (which is not, truly, her real name, to assure you, but it's become a common one for her over the past decade that it's not hard to think of herself as such) can think, can dream, can imagine. Sometimes, inspiration is so overflowing that her fingers can barely keep up with her thoughts.
Sometimes, that is.
Lately, not so much.
She squints at her screen, desperate for something. Oh, the thoughts, the scenarios are there. Every bit of detail, she has it, but the words don't want to come.
She can imagine a lot. But doing it now seems like so much damned effort.
Alba puts her face into her hands. What doesn't help, probably, is that her imagination likes to jump. She doesn't have one specified interest. She enjoys fiction of all kinds. Drama, horror, fantasy, adventure, sci-fi -- all of it, when done well, it's terribly fascination, and so much can be done with it.
Right now, as she tries to write anything, anything equally enjoys jumping out at her.
"Oh! But what are words? What can be spoken or written can only do so much! Action is what you must do, my princess!" Her brow twitches, and she can easily imagine the voice, the way Tamaki Suoh would be gracefully moving his arms in gestures in dramatic lighting, the way he'd spin around like he was dancing in a ballroom. (Alba dated a princely type of guy once, she's not really into them anymore.)
Tamaki's jaw drops at her, because what she knows is his knowledge (because he's not REAL, just her imagination, just a MUSE if anything). "What?!"
"My lord, she just needs a different type."
"Maybe our type." The Hitachiin twins grin, just as she knows they will, and they balance themselves against her chair.
Alba scowls at them. Right, she enjoys slash like any fangirl, but incest really isn't her thing--
Oh. They're looking disappointed now.
"Alba-chan, Alba-chan--!" Hani begins.
Random Japanese hurts her soul.
Hani's lower lip quivers.
"Perhaps she needs a different prince?" Oh what the fuck. Long red (like, seriously, red red) silky hair, white uniform, and she can imagine the way Touga would tuck his fingers under her chin.
Alba glowers. What did she say about prince-types? Tamaki is like an adorable puppy. Touga is like a puppy who was thrown out the window and hit every rock the way down the hill and somehow managed to limp away.
(Freak.)
"I really don't need a crossover right now," Alba says, exasperated. "Can't you all just... poof?"
They sort of just disappear, like that. Relief is only temporary, of course.
She sighs and holds her forehead. Her mind jumps again.
"Didn't she used to have waffles in her freezer?" Cyborg laments in a corner of her room. "Blueberry ones!"
"Her mom still carries soy milk," Beast Boy says, giving thumbs up of approval. "Oh hey, check it! She's got figures of us."
"This is clearly because I never finished that Teen Titans fic," Alba mutters out loud. "I swear to God, if Billy Numerous shows--"
"Howdy!"
"How y'all doin'?"
"Hey--"
"Fucker," Alba hisses between her teeth.
Beast Boy points at her. "She said a bad word. We can't say that word on the show! How messed up is that?"
Kyd Wykkyd shrugs before he proceeds to work on a pillow fort on the bed.
"I'm feeling distinctly crowded," Alba says flatly. "And yet none of you are real. How in the hell is that possible?"
"Reality. But of the mind."
Alba isn't really sure if she wants to squeal or facepalm. Mysteriously, the Question has his own chair from out of no where, sitting beside her as the other muses run rampant through her apartment.
The faceless man points to his own head. "Your reality is our reality, as it always will be. Only what you believe to be true. Real, behind the mind of it--"
"Can I imagine you using personal pronouns?" Alba absently asks.
"No. You wouldn't do that."
Alba shakes her head. "I guess not." She's too damned picky.
"You have rats in your attic," Booster laments in the back of the bedroom. "Don't you know I have rat issues?"
"You just have issues," Ted says, off to the side.
"It always comes in threes, doesn't it," Alba mutters. "Guys, help me out here. What's my problem?"
Booster glances at Ted. Ted only shrugs before saying, "We only know what you know, duh. I mean, there are possibilities, right? There's a lot you want to do, and you're scared of not doing anything, so. Yeah, you're not doing anything, because you're afraid of it."
"The future's scary," Booster notes helpfully. "I'd know."
"The present isn't all that much better." Alba shakes her head.
She can imagine them wandering off with other muses, and imagines that the Question nearly breaks her window because that's what he does, but she scowls at him for the thought.
She imagines, the floor getting wet, and the room slowly filling with water. Way too cold. She pulls her feet up onto her chair, and frowns.
"Can you, like. Be depressed elsewhere," Alba requests flatly.
Naturally, James Sunderland doesn't even answer her, dripping wet and hanging out on the bed where there are remains of Kyd Wykkyd's attempts on a pillow fort. Or rather, her imagination says there is.
"He does what you do," Saix notes, seated in an all-too-white chair.
"I'm not depressed," Alba says stubbornly.
Saix smirks wryly. "No?"
"No." Alba scowls at him. "I'm not."
"Of course you're not," Saix replies.
Somewhere along the line, he just sort of fades off. Saix has that habit, coming and going when he pleases and never when Alba needs him.
(Jerk.)
The water's still there, and James is too, like a parasite she really doesn't need right now, and she can (imagine) feel water rising somehow in her bedroom.
"Why couldn't I have gotten the dog ending version of you?" Alba asks herself flatly.
scrape scrape scrape CLANK
"Oh for the love of. My closet isn't even that big." Alba glares at the door to her closet. "Knock that off!"
The closet door creaks open (so she imagines it so), and the long, red pyramid helmet stares back at her.
Even in her mind, Pyramid Head is intimidating.
"Well, just. Do it. Quietly or something," Alba mumbles, glancing away.
There's heavy breathing from good ol' PH (WHY LOOKIT THE TIME) and he slips back into the closet, shutting it.
Damn it, that water won't stop rising. She points a finger at the depressed muse, snapping, "I blame you." Then, she crawls onto the bed with him, hugging her legs to herself. "Jerk," she adds.
Naturally, James has nothing to comment, still dripping wet. He blinks, at least.
Astounding.
"The symbolisms are painful, and I have so many drowning jokes that I feel unwitty just admitting that," Dr. House mutters, seated on a--
"Gurney," Alba says, glaring at him. "Dude, I don't even write stories for your fandom. Why are you on that, I don't even have one in my room?"
"I'm a doctor, duh. It's symbolism. A really crappy one." House holds out his hand. "Imagine me up a Gameboy or something, this is dull."
"Why the hell did I imagine you?"
House snorts. "You couldn't think of someone more sarcastic to banter with?"
"I don't want to banter."
"Clearly, you do." House keeps his hand out. "Gameboy. Make this worthwhile for me, would you?"
Alba rolls her eyes. A Gameboy DS, then.
"Sweet."
With a scratched up screen.
"Bitch."
With an A button that doesn't work half the time.
"Clearly, I need to be smarter than to taunt the writer," House laments, but plays with the thing anyway. "What am I even playing?"
"Dr. Mario."
"Didn't see that one coming at all," House says flatly, but he plays anyway.
"Wow, it's really cold in here," Harry Mason says on the other end of the bed.
"The water might have something to do with that. Or, the water I'm imagining, anyway," Alba suggests.
"Symmmmbolism," House calls out from behind the DS.
Ooo, looks like the direction pad is being fussy, too.
"Bitch!"
Harry frowns. "Language."
"It's okay, you know 'fuck' is 90% of my vocabulary," Alba assures.
"I feel like my ears are bleeding," Harry says quietly. He points a thumb to the silent, wet James. "He could really use a towel."
Okay, fine, why not. Bam, a towel. A nice, warm, fluffy towel.
"This isn't helping at all." Alba rubs the back of her neck.
"You can look at it in a number of different ways. Water being related to emotion, filling up inside of a tiny room," Harry offers.
"You sound like my mom.
"You made me sound like your mom."
Alba scowls. "Your mom."
"That doesn't work," House tells her.
Oh snaps, running out of batteries.
"I have such hate for you."
"Now you're just avoiding the issue," Harry tells her. "I guess that's why I pop up sometimes, so you don't avoid it."
"You're a fictional character. That doesn't make any ounce of logic to me," Alba tells him.
"Yeah, but you're about being unlogical, aren't you?" Harry smiles faintly at her, using the towel to dry off James' head, though he remains fairly unresponsive. "What you have are a set guidelines for the lot of us, or at least points of interest. For me, you think I'm nice -- thank you by the way -- and that I'm a good dad -- thanks again -- but those are still opinions."
"My personal facts, thank you," Alba says, shrugging. "What am I having you get at?"
"Good dad. Why else am I here?" Harry asks her quietly.
"Ooo, daddy issues," House mutters behind his game.
Shit shit, your screen is blinking.
"Damn it--!"
Harry ruffles her hair, or so she imagines, because she likes that kind of attention. It's dumb, being treated like a kid, but she likes hugs and comfort and things she can't get in the middle of the night like this. "It's okay," he says, though Alba isn't sure if it's because she wants him to say it or if it's because it's something Harry Mason would really even do. "It's okay to miss someone you love."
"He was a jerk sometimes," Alba mutters, and her mind convinces her that Harry would hug her about now.
"Well, everyone's a jerk sometimes," Harry tells her. "Even if they don't mean to be."
"I do," House inserts, because he's House.
"He was sexist. I never felt good enough. I never felt like I was me--" Alba mutters.
"You never felt like you had a chance to tell him, either," Harry says gently.
"No. I guess not." Because she really needs it, really really needs it, she can imagine another pair of arms (mommy figure would be good, Mom's sleeping downstairs) and Tifa Lockhart is holding her too (or so she imagines).
"It's not easy. In an instant, gone," Tifa says quietly.
"It was his fault." There's sadness and there's anger and somehow it's raining inside of Alba's room, and she can almost feel like she's getting wet. "And I think I saw it coming. How fucking wrong is that? 'Don't blame yourself, Jen.' 'There was nothing you could do.' Yeah, okay, it's been three years, but still, I feel like... I saw it coming, I could have done something, why the fuck didn't I?"
"This game blows," House mutters. "You're missing the point."
"Go fuck a man!" Alba shakes her fist at House.
"I am, somewhere in some girl's fantasy while she wets her panties." House rolls his eyes. "If and maybe and somehow -- you're wasting your time."
"You didn't pull the trigger," James says absently.
Alba thinks she'd really like to cling onto Tifa and Harry about now (too bad they're not real, too bad). "No."
"You didn't make him." James puts his feet into the water (ruining a perfectly good pair of sexy boots).
"No," Alba agrees flatly.
"You're not very old," he states the obvious.
Alba eyes him. "I feel like I am."
"You're not," he says simply.
"It's okay," Sora says somewhere in the room. "Don't be afraid to reach out sometimes. You're so insecure. Like some people."
"Hey," Riku says, not quite offended.
"And there's only so much good an imaginary hug is going to do you, anyway," Harry notes. "Real ones are a lot better."
"They are," Alba agrees, a bit stiffly.
"Reaching out doesn't always hurt," Tifa assures. "But we'll always be here when you need us."
"Yeah." It's not something she's set on. She isn't good at telling people her personal thoughts, the really. Really personal ones.
"You're doing it now," House points out.
"Oh." Duh. "Shit."
House holds up his DS. "You make me a very sad man."
-=-=-
In a very dry room, with no one but herself in the dead of the night, Alba says to no one in particular:
"Bite me."
I'unno.
Title: Mindful
Series: haha. What? I don't fucking know. It's a mesh of everything possible.
Rating: PG-13, I guess.
Summary: Alba wants to write. Something is wrong. She talks to muses. Or, really, they talk to her.
Scenarios are easy to think up of. Imagination comes with ease for a child, and even at this age, Alba (which is not, truly, her real name, to assure you, but it's become a common one for her over the past decade that it's not hard to think of herself as such) can think, can dream, can imagine. Sometimes, inspiration is so overflowing that her fingers can barely keep up with her thoughts.
Sometimes, that is.
Lately, not so much.
She squints at her screen, desperate for something. Oh, the thoughts, the scenarios are there. Every bit of detail, she has it, but the words don't want to come.
She can imagine a lot. But doing it now seems like so much damned effort.
Alba puts her face into her hands. What doesn't help, probably, is that her imagination likes to jump. She doesn't have one specified interest. She enjoys fiction of all kinds. Drama, horror, fantasy, adventure, sci-fi -- all of it, when done well, it's terribly fascination, and so much can be done with it.
Right now, as she tries to write anything, anything equally enjoys jumping out at her.
"Oh! But what are words? What can be spoken or written can only do so much! Action is what you must do, my princess!" Her brow twitches, and she can easily imagine the voice, the way Tamaki Suoh would be gracefully moving his arms in gestures in dramatic lighting, the way he'd spin around like he was dancing in a ballroom. (Alba dated a princely type of guy once, she's not really into them anymore.)
Tamaki's jaw drops at her, because what she knows is his knowledge (because he's not REAL, just her imagination, just a MUSE if anything). "What?!"
"My lord, she just needs a different type."
"Maybe our type." The Hitachiin twins grin, just as she knows they will, and they balance themselves against her chair.
Alba scowls at them. Right, she enjoys slash like any fangirl, but incest really isn't her thing--
Oh. They're looking disappointed now.
"Alba-chan, Alba-chan--!" Hani begins.
Random Japanese hurts her soul.
Hani's lower lip quivers.
"Perhaps she needs a different prince?" Oh what the fuck. Long red (like, seriously, red red) silky hair, white uniform, and she can imagine the way Touga would tuck his fingers under her chin.
Alba glowers. What did she say about prince-types? Tamaki is like an adorable puppy. Touga is like a puppy who was thrown out the window and hit every rock the way down the hill and somehow managed to limp away.
(Freak.)
"I really don't need a crossover right now," Alba says, exasperated. "Can't you all just... poof?"
They sort of just disappear, like that. Relief is only temporary, of course.
She sighs and holds her forehead. Her mind jumps again.
"Didn't she used to have waffles in her freezer?" Cyborg laments in a corner of her room. "Blueberry ones!"
"Her mom still carries soy milk," Beast Boy says, giving thumbs up of approval. "Oh hey, check it! She's got figures of us."
"This is clearly because I never finished that Teen Titans fic," Alba mutters out loud. "I swear to God, if Billy Numerous shows--"
"Howdy!"
"How y'all doin'?"
"Hey--"
"Fucker," Alba hisses between her teeth.
Beast Boy points at her. "She said a bad word. We can't say that word on the show! How messed up is that?"
Kyd Wykkyd shrugs before he proceeds to work on a pillow fort on the bed.
"I'm feeling distinctly crowded," Alba says flatly. "And yet none of you are real. How in the hell is that possible?"
"Reality. But of the mind."
Alba isn't really sure if she wants to squeal or facepalm. Mysteriously, the Question has his own chair from out of no where, sitting beside her as the other muses run rampant through her apartment.
The faceless man points to his own head. "Your reality is our reality, as it always will be. Only what you believe to be true. Real, behind the mind of it--"
"Can I imagine you using personal pronouns?" Alba absently asks.
"No. You wouldn't do that."
Alba shakes her head. "I guess not." She's too damned picky.
"You have rats in your attic," Booster laments in the back of the bedroom. "Don't you know I have rat issues?"
"You just have issues," Ted says, off to the side.
"It always comes in threes, doesn't it," Alba mutters. "Guys, help me out here. What's my problem?"
Booster glances at Ted. Ted only shrugs before saying, "We only know what you know, duh. I mean, there are possibilities, right? There's a lot you want to do, and you're scared of not doing anything, so. Yeah, you're not doing anything, because you're afraid of it."
"The future's scary," Booster notes helpfully. "I'd know."
"The present isn't all that much better." Alba shakes her head.
She can imagine them wandering off with other muses, and imagines that the Question nearly breaks her window because that's what he does, but she scowls at him for the thought.
She imagines, the floor getting wet, and the room slowly filling with water. Way too cold. She pulls her feet up onto her chair, and frowns.
"Can you, like. Be depressed elsewhere," Alba requests flatly.
Naturally, James Sunderland doesn't even answer her, dripping wet and hanging out on the bed where there are remains of Kyd Wykkyd's attempts on a pillow fort. Or rather, her imagination says there is.
"He does what you do," Saix notes, seated in an all-too-white chair.
"I'm not depressed," Alba says stubbornly.
Saix smirks wryly. "No?"
"No." Alba scowls at him. "I'm not."
"Of course you're not," Saix replies.
Somewhere along the line, he just sort of fades off. Saix has that habit, coming and going when he pleases and never when Alba needs him.
(Jerk.)
The water's still there, and James is too, like a parasite she really doesn't need right now, and she can (imagine) feel water rising somehow in her bedroom.
"Why couldn't I have gotten the dog ending version of you?" Alba asks herself flatly.
scrape scrape scrape CLANK
"Oh for the love of. My closet isn't even that big." Alba glares at the door to her closet. "Knock that off!"
The closet door creaks open (so she imagines it so), and the long, red pyramid helmet stares back at her.
Even in her mind, Pyramid Head is intimidating.
"Well, just. Do it. Quietly or something," Alba mumbles, glancing away.
There's heavy breathing from good ol' PH (WHY LOOKIT THE TIME) and he slips back into the closet, shutting it.
Damn it, that water won't stop rising. She points a finger at the depressed muse, snapping, "I blame you." Then, she crawls onto the bed with him, hugging her legs to herself. "Jerk," she adds.
Naturally, James has nothing to comment, still dripping wet. He blinks, at least.
Astounding.
"The symbolisms are painful, and I have so many drowning jokes that I feel unwitty just admitting that," Dr. House mutters, seated on a--
"Gurney," Alba says, glaring at him. "Dude, I don't even write stories for your fandom. Why are you on that, I don't even have one in my room?"
"I'm a doctor, duh. It's symbolism. A really crappy one." House holds out his hand. "Imagine me up a Gameboy or something, this is dull."
"Why the hell did I imagine you?"
House snorts. "You couldn't think of someone more sarcastic to banter with?"
"I don't want to banter."
"Clearly, you do." House keeps his hand out. "Gameboy. Make this worthwhile for me, would you?"
Alba rolls her eyes. A Gameboy DS, then.
"Sweet."
With a scratched up screen.
"Bitch."
With an A button that doesn't work half the time.
"Clearly, I need to be smarter than to taunt the writer," House laments, but plays with the thing anyway. "What am I even playing?"
"Dr. Mario."
"Didn't see that one coming at all," House says flatly, but he plays anyway.
"Wow, it's really cold in here," Harry Mason says on the other end of the bed.
"The water might have something to do with that. Or, the water I'm imagining, anyway," Alba suggests.
"Symmmmbolism," House calls out from behind the DS.
Ooo, looks like the direction pad is being fussy, too.
"Bitch!"
Harry frowns. "Language."
"It's okay, you know 'fuck' is 90% of my vocabulary," Alba assures.
"I feel like my ears are bleeding," Harry says quietly. He points a thumb to the silent, wet James. "He could really use a towel."
Okay, fine, why not. Bam, a towel. A nice, warm, fluffy towel.
"This isn't helping at all." Alba rubs the back of her neck.
"You can look at it in a number of different ways. Water being related to emotion, filling up inside of a tiny room," Harry offers.
"You sound like my mom.
"You made me sound like your mom."
Alba scowls. "Your mom."
"That doesn't work," House tells her.
Oh snaps, running out of batteries.
"I have such hate for you."
"Now you're just avoiding the issue," Harry tells her. "I guess that's why I pop up sometimes, so you don't avoid it."
"You're a fictional character. That doesn't make any ounce of logic to me," Alba tells him.
"Yeah, but you're about being unlogical, aren't you?" Harry smiles faintly at her, using the towel to dry off James' head, though he remains fairly unresponsive. "What you have are a set guidelines for the lot of us, or at least points of interest. For me, you think I'm nice -- thank you by the way -- and that I'm a good dad -- thanks again -- but those are still opinions."
"My personal facts, thank you," Alba says, shrugging. "What am I having you get at?"
"Good dad. Why else am I here?" Harry asks her quietly.
"Ooo, daddy issues," House mutters behind his game.
Shit shit, your screen is blinking.
"Damn it--!"
Harry ruffles her hair, or so she imagines, because she likes that kind of attention. It's dumb, being treated like a kid, but she likes hugs and comfort and things she can't get in the middle of the night like this. "It's okay," he says, though Alba isn't sure if it's because she wants him to say it or if it's because it's something Harry Mason would really even do. "It's okay to miss someone you love."
"He was a jerk sometimes," Alba mutters, and her mind convinces her that Harry would hug her about now.
"Well, everyone's a jerk sometimes," Harry tells her. "Even if they don't mean to be."
"I do," House inserts, because he's House.
"He was sexist. I never felt good enough. I never felt like I was me--" Alba mutters.
"You never felt like you had a chance to tell him, either," Harry says gently.
"No. I guess not." Because she really needs it, really really needs it, she can imagine another pair of arms (mommy figure would be good, Mom's sleeping downstairs) and Tifa Lockhart is holding her too (or so she imagines).
"It's not easy. In an instant, gone," Tifa says quietly.
"It was his fault." There's sadness and there's anger and somehow it's raining inside of Alba's room, and she can almost feel like she's getting wet. "And I think I saw it coming. How fucking wrong is that? 'Don't blame yourself, Jen.' 'There was nothing you could do.' Yeah, okay, it's been three years, but still, I feel like... I saw it coming, I could have done something, why the fuck didn't I?"
"This game blows," House mutters. "You're missing the point."
"Go fuck a man!" Alba shakes her fist at House.
"I am, somewhere in some girl's fantasy while she wets her panties." House rolls his eyes. "If and maybe and somehow -- you're wasting your time."
"You didn't pull the trigger," James says absently.
Alba thinks she'd really like to cling onto Tifa and Harry about now (too bad they're not real, too bad). "No."
"You didn't make him." James puts his feet into the water (ruining a perfectly good pair of sexy boots).
"No," Alba agrees flatly.
"You're not very old," he states the obvious.
Alba eyes him. "I feel like I am."
"You're not," he says simply.
"It's okay," Sora says somewhere in the room. "Don't be afraid to reach out sometimes. You're so insecure. Like some people."
"Hey," Riku says, not quite offended.
"And there's only so much good an imaginary hug is going to do you, anyway," Harry notes. "Real ones are a lot better."
"They are," Alba agrees, a bit stiffly.
"Reaching out doesn't always hurt," Tifa assures. "But we'll always be here when you need us."
"Yeah." It's not something she's set on. She isn't good at telling people her personal thoughts, the really. Really personal ones.
"You're doing it now," House points out.
"Oh." Duh. "Shit."
House holds up his DS. "You make me a very sad man."
-=-=-
In a very dry room, with no one but herself in the dead of the night, Alba says to no one in particular:
"Bite me."