[open] a friend in need is a friend indeed

[idontlikecake]

There is so much Lily Fuchizaki needs to do. There's the whole catching up on grad school after her ward went partially insane bit, but right now, she's on her way up to see Iris in the Kashtta. That doesn't mean she won't bump into a few other people on the way. If anything, it's pretty likely considering how overly polite she can get.

Sailor

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[sophicsulphur]

Functioning. Alive. The best that can be said for any of us, perhaps, she can't help thinking. When Kaden said Molly was doing fine back on the journals, she didn't truly believe him. Someone who would come crying to her girlfriend in broken language, begging for the release of death, believing that a double suicide would be the greatest form of love she could offer her... such a person couldn't possibly be "fine" or "okay" in such a short timespan, by any definition. She would know. She feels for Molly all too well.

Functioning, at least, is more honest. And she needs honesty now. They've been evading each other for far too long, and she'd like a shot at actually communicating for once. Molly's crazed babble at her over the journals had broken her heart, what there was left of it that wasn't already numbed, but in a way, she'd welcomed it. Even when Molly told her she didn't know how to love, that she wasn't sure if she loved Iris... she'd welcomed it. Because it felt like the truth, and for far too long, in one way or another, she's been living a lie.

She wants out. Out from under the lie of her body, out from under the lies of others, out from under the lies she tells herself.

"Existing," she says, and her wing trembles with the breaths she takes, with the force of being true. With the force of setting herself free, uncaging her emotions on the pretext that past these few months it won't matter any more, she'll either sink or swim, fly or fall.

"I wish I wasn't here in this room, but I feel like if I don't stay they'll forget about me. They'll never fix me. Everything I am rides on this one slim line of hope. In the meantime... I'm painting. My friends come to see me. There's kindness around me." The words slip from her mouth like billowing ghosts, almost casually said, her eyes a million miles distant from their implications. "I'm mutilated. All I want is to fly again."

Her eyes don't leave Lily's, though her statements are lethargic, questioning, not meant in anger. "Do you know what that's like?"

[idontlikecake]

Lily's breath catches in her throat, thinking about when life was like that. When she was standing on the edge of a precipice, just existing and no one else could see it. And then she's remembering being trapped in the closet, spiders crawling over her skin, biting. Begging to be let out, promising that she'll be good. Perhaps this is where she can begin to gain trust. Obviously Kaden can't be her boogieman; Iris would never trust him. But how many times has Lily lied and said it was Ken who committed such atrocities to her? That he was the one who broke her? How many therapists had she claimed she was going to be okay, that she was going to survive.

Her wings are shaking, fluttering, black feathers falling to the ground. She presses a hand to her forehead, trying to figure out how to say this without making the pain all come rushing back.

"Yes," she says softly. "I know what that's like. Knowing you can never be fixed, that you're broken, even even though people are moving around you, people are trying to hold you up, you're so afraid you're just going to crumple in their arms. You don't know how you keep on breathing. The nightmares keep you from sleeping. Knowing that you're broken, wrong, incorrect, never will be loved."

She looks away from Iris, tangling her fingers in her perfectly styled hair, messing it all up. Her nail polish chips on a barrette. It doesn't matter.

"And so I spent 5 years being someone else," Jessi says. "I hid from my own fears and tried to be anyone but myself."

[sophicsulphur]

She wasn't expecting that answer. Her eyes are more focused, now, more human, her body hunched closer towards Lily in her chair as she takes in her story. Or, rather, her impressions of the story. She doesn't know what the story behind it all is, but she knows what it made Lily feel, and she knows that that's enough.

"I understand," she says, softly, sadly, not reaching towards Lily for an embrace or a consoling pat-- nothing quite so intimate, nothing quite so open-- but holding that compassion in her eyes. She notes a fallen feather, and some instinct in her almost makes a move to grab it, to hold it close, or maybe to offer it back to her, but she isn't sure what's appropriate here, and so she leaves it well alone.

Another Iris might have said, You don't have to talk about it. But this Iris just wants knowledge. Wants to know what to do, to get her through these lean times, or if they should be gotten through at all.

"I don't think that I can hide from myself," she says; and she doesn't need to shake her wing for emphasis, or add a lace of bitterness to that statement, for its meaning to be conveyed. Her ten-and-a-half-foot wing is the proverbial elephant in the room, looming over them at a similar height. "And I don't think I want to be anyone else. But all of it, all of it's the same. I feel like... paper. I could just crumple. Let go. Because I'm-- so wrong, and I could just fall apart."

It's a statement that sounds like it should be followed by tears, but she isn't crying. She's just distant, numb, her expression vacant, a solid wall between her eyes and brain.

[idontlikecake]

"It took me 18 years to figure out how to survive, and not just exist," Jessi says. "What got me through that? I don't know. Love. I broke a couple of times. I couldn't hide from what was hurting me. I couldn't hide from my fears. I couldn't have been much older than you when I started breaking. When I realized I couldn't go on much longer without everything falling in on itself. No, I know what kept me alive -- he couldn't survive, knowing I was dead."

It's true. Even though he was her abuser, the reason she had to leave, she couldn't just leave the world entirely. She had to let Jane know she was alive so Kaden would know. And then he could hope. She in turn had hoped that was enough to keep him sane. Or better. Maybe he could get better without her. How childish she had been.

"In my family," she says, seeming to change subjects, but it's all the same in her mind, "It's a sign of weakness to show your wings. You're not supposed to show emotion and letting your wings out is exactly doing that." Her wings twitch with her words, jerky and uncontrolled, even though she's spent so much time having to learn how to control them. Fuchizaki's and wing control don't really go well together. "He beat me, when I got them and couldn't bring them back in." Kaden actually took that beating for her. How many beatings did he spare her from?

"Maybe it's better that you can't be, don't want to be anyone else. Because -- I think he needs you. She does too, I mean, but I can't speak for her. We don't -- we don't have a lot of people in our lives and losing you would be another -- Sorry. I shouldn't be putting this on you."

[sophicsulphur]

"No, you shouldn't," she says, and it's again without recrimination in her tone, but even then, it's a surprising thing for her to say. Even she seems to realise it, and flinches momentarily, regarding Lily with a strained expression. "I'm-- sorry. I'm just trying to... to be honest. It feels like... I don't have much to lose. And I'm tired of hiding. So... so I guess I just want to be honest."

She cracks her knuckles, as if preparing for that onslaught of honesty, though her voice is still gentle. "I'm sorry for what happened to you. What happens to you. To all of them. I notice the beatings. I notice there's something terribly wrong in your family, something I can't explain. I don't know if it's possession or what it is, but I know that something is-- something is wrong. And yet you fight on through it, those of you with good spirits inside. You know it'll drown you in the end. But you keep fighting."

She takes a breath in and out through her nose, smiles a little. It's an apologetic sort of smile, perhaps, if it could be classified as anything. "I know they need me. I know. And I know what's right to do. I... don't think I can make it into any noble or grand thing, that I feel this way... I don't want to try. I don't need to-- I'm not going to make some big argument, like, what about me, what about my right to be happy, you know? Because that's-- that's not what I believe. I believe it's right to do what you did. To keep fighting."

Her smile widens a tiny bit then, without a trace of irony. "I believe you're... a better person than me, for that. I think... that's okay."

[idontlikecake]

"I didn't keep fighting," Lily says. "I ran away. I abandoned everyone who cared about me, selfishly hoping that I could make something better for myself."

And in the end, it all is back to where it started. Slightly better, she'll admit, but it's still so similar. Jessi sighs, pressing a hand to her forehead, the headache only increasing.

"I don't know who's a better person. I don't even think I know what makes a person good anymore."

Then she pauses, taking in a deep breath.

"You're not the first I've met, either. I do -- I do a lot of work with Angels of Vengeance, and it's not uncommon for them to find themselves in a similar place to where you are now. In the end, I've been unable to figure out how to fix them. I guess it's stupid of me to think that I can save anyone, especially when I go after those who are the most broken.

"Each and every death, loss, hurts so much. A big part of my research right now is how to rehabilitate angels who have suffered from wing loss. I -- know yours is different. Or maybe it's not. What do I know of who you are, in the end? I just -- lost one of my patients and --"

Tears burn at the corners of Jessi's eyes, but Lily is impatient.

"Sorry. It's just. Hard. I thought that I could -- I always think I can --"

[sophicsulphur]

Iris would have to agree with that one, at least. Good and bad seem topsy-turvy in this strange world of Chicago. She's been trying to cling to what she once believed was good, but so many things have shaken up her perceptions, shattered them, twisted them back on themselves. Maybe Lily's right. Maybe there's no way of knowing what's good any more.

It feels like a release, in an odd way-- the idea that she can just give up on the idea of what's good and what's not, that she doesn't have to carry the burden any more. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. She wants, so badly, to abandon it. She has worked and worked, and all has come to nothing.

It idly crosses her mind that if what makes a person good doesn't matter, then what does? But perhaps that's the point. Nothing matters. All this that lies before you is yours to deal with as you see fit.

--no. She can't believe it. She can't ever become a person who truly believes in that morality. She knows she opposes it, even as she descends into it. She just doesn't have the strength for any other choice.

It makes her bad, but maybe it's okay to be bad. Thanatos was, after all, named the Mana of Evil by those in ignorance. The two of them were always the closest. This sinking isn't good, but maybe it's okay, if it's all she can really do.

Of course, it's not too long before Lily says the magic words. Fix. Rehabilitate. Wing loss. And there's an unable to figure out in there, too, and she is not so naive as she was that she would ignore that, not any longer, not after this much pain. But still, she's intrigued. She can't help but be, even as her mind is screaming this path only ever leads to more pain.

"You can't fix them," she says, getting that out of the way first and foremost. "But you-- rehabilitate them. Help them to... to live, or something, as they are." She chews over that. As they are. Less than whole. "You... help them to cope, somehow. With being cripples. Defective." She wouldn't use the cutting, cruel words on anyone else, but she can't help but use them on herself. It's how she feels.

"It's a good idea." And you want to help me that way too, perhaps, she thinks. "But I don't think I want to live that way."

The old Iris would have reached out to Lily's tears. This Iris is locked up tight, to keep from shedding them herself.

[idontlikecake]

"You know," Lily says quietly, "that's what most of them say. In the beginning, I mean."

Because who wants to live broken? Losing everything that's the core of you? It may abate the Calling, make things hurt less, but at the same time, you are not longer what made you you. And that's just not good for the psyche.

"But no, I can't fix them. I can't make them whole again. But I can help them find fulfillment in other things. Perhaps, even after time, help them not see themselves as defective or crippled, but just as they are. Right now -- I don't think you're in a place where I can completely help you. But if you can just stick around, a bit longer, so we can see. See if I can help. Because that's all I want to do."

Heal them first, so when you break them later, it's all the better.

[sophicsulphur]

Well, she's sticking around, either way; until her allotted time is up, at least. She's already decided on that. She doesn't really know why; she doesn't have too much faith that anyone can fix her now, if Aurora can't. But she figures maybe she should give herself the chance. Maybe something will click into place. And if nothing else, she won't be able to say that she didn't try, for what value of "trying" she can current manage.

She nods, softly. "I'll be here for a while," she says. "Or... well, I'll be somewhere, I guess. If I'm not here-here, then... the journals. You know."

[idontlikecake]

"There's no way I'm letting you off my radar for quite some time, Iris," Lily says. "You mean too much to me for it to be any other way."

Lies. All of the lies, adding up, the pain twitching in her wings. They jerk, brushing up against the bed. She pulls them back in, looking upset. She should have better control than this.

"Speaking of, I brought you something." She reaches into her bag, pulling out a wrapped package. Inside is a small collection of books. She never was much of a fiction reader, but the clerk at the bookstore had been more than helpful. There's a bunch of YA fantasy and one book leaning more towards science fiction.

[sophicsulphur]

She smiles at Lily's show of warmth, a fragile smile. Then there's a bow, from her hunched position on the floor, as she takes the package, a slight show of surprise crossing her face.

"...You didn't have to," she says, unwrapping the package with shaky fingers, yet ensuring her motions are careful, not crude. It wouldn't do to rip the paper in front of the one giving you a gift. "Thank you, Lily. It... does get boring in here. It'll be nice to have something to read."

She runs her fingers over the titles on the spines: they aren't terribly revealing. She finds herself wondering if Lily's deliberately gone for books featuring winged people, or books without. There'll be something missing either way. Though that won't be the books' fault.

She sets the books down neatly at her side, a marginal light seeming to dawn in her eyes as she remembers their conversation of slightly earlier.
She picks up her canvas and turns it now to show Lily. It's a painting mostly in reds, greys and whites, not terribly well-rendered, but it doesn't seem intended to be. There's something of the feel of protest art about it, a raw scream encapsulated in paper. Amidst a burning city, crude fingures of winged men are hunted down, shot from the skies, left in the gutters in puddles of blood. One struggling figure looks disturbingly as if she's being raped. It's not the type of art one might have expected from Iris at all.

"This is... I don't know," she says, tucking a bit of hair behind her ear. "It made me think of what you said, about those people. There must be-- so many, if you're working with them. I painted this. I thought I was just painting for myself, but... maybe I think I was painting because I wanted to-- to have a voice." She looks down at the painting, the fake-blood-smeared paper, the dappled watercolour smoke billowing up into the sky. "I feel like... I don't know. Maybe we could do something. With these voices. If I die, I... don't want my voice to go unheard. I want people to know what it was like. Maybe you could find a place to put these-- an exhibit--"

She shakes her head. "I don't know. And... it's not like I paint well, or anything. I just feel like... we should show people. I feel like... even if I'm not alive, I want people to keep hearing." Her eyes are intense, over the rim of the paper.

[idontlikecake]

It doesn't even take her degree in psychology to tell what's going on in this picture. If Lily is shocked to see it, she doesn't show it on her face. There's really very little that truly shocks her to the core anymore.

"There are quite a few," she says. It's a lie. There aren't that many, and really, she needs to be looking at wing removal as a cure for some of the problems AoVs deal with, but Iris doesn't need to know that. There's so much Iris doesn't need to know.

"You know, even with the art, it's kind of hard for them to hear your voice when you're gone. Let's show people together."

[sophicsulphur]

She tilts her head, not quite understanding. Her paintings will speak well enough when she's gone. And if she were to make some kind of public protest....

"It's a nice idea, but... I'm not sure what I can do," she says, mildly. "I could stand there holding these, or I could... accompany my own exhibit, I guess. But doesn't that just make me a target? Isn't that what everyone keeps telling me I shouldn't do? Be public?"

There's an edge to her voice now, just a hint of one. "If I thought for a moment that it would be safe for me to-- to build a platform in Grant Park, and shout about what happened to me until my throat was sore, until my lungs gave out... I'd do it." She shrugs a little. "I might do it anyway, if there's nothing else left. But... I don't think that's what you had in mind."

[idontlikecake]

"There are ways to be safe about it," Lily says. "Ways that don't make you a target, and instead, make you a beacon of hope for those who need your help."

She smiles, leaning forward. "It just takes a little bit of figuring things out. I can help you with that. In fact, we could even set up a fundraiser. To help those who have been hurt by the CLF. You could speak about what's happened to you. You can do that, without getting hurt worse.

"I promise."

[sophicsulphur]

Lily has Iris' interest, now. It's not that she believes that promise, not too deeply; she's grown too wary to take promises at face value any more. But still, the idea that she could speak, that she could have a voice....

Ever since Owen had cowed her with his words, pumped cold sedative into her veins, robbed her of her ability to say no-- she's been longing to scream. To shout, to speak, to tell the world in her own words, without mitigation or censorship, how she feels. How it hurts. How it's so wrong, and how it should never be allowed to happen to anybody again.

It's the only thing, perhaps, that could enthuse her now; that, and the prospect of healing. Of course, she seems less than enthused still, her motions still sluggish, her expression still drained; but there's something in there, a twist of urgency. It's small, but Lily's a Fuchizaki. She'll pick it up easily enough.

"I... I want to," she says, and she's not sure if the stammer is from fear, or anger, or hope. "Help me. Please."

[idontlikecake]

"I'll do anything I can to help," Lily says, taking in a deep breath. "Really."

She pauses, looking over at the painting. "I can get you a journal -- a non psychic one -- and maybe you can mull over what you'd say, when you have a chance to say it. Maybe that'll help until I can set something up for you."

She hopes it's enough. She has to keep Iris alive, hoping. For Kaden's sake, at the very lease. She could try to replace Iris, with some other girl, but then he'll still have to figure out why Iris left. Even though it's not his fault. It can't be his fault.