(no subject)
I've changed to Firefox for the time being. Lets see what happens. So far, the only complain I have is that I have to type the name of the entry when I save a page, at least in livejournal. It wants to save it with the number of the post, but I'd rather it was like in IE, with the whole subject instead. *shrugs* If any know knows how to fix that, I'd really appreciate it.
I've realized that this killing Sandy and Kirsten bit is a bit more difficult than I first imagined. It really, really is. Barely 2k and it was like pulling teeth, like finding an ending to a story I've been working on for about a month [The last to know]. That story (the one that won't let me finish it, damn it) it's almost 10k, it need for me to add about a couple of sentences to the scene and then write the last scene and it hates me. *grumbles*
That said, I'm still very much for previews. Reminds me of NaNo and the story that hates me. *giggles* One of the many.
Ryan shifts Sophie's lax limbs in his arms, already asleep, dead-- He coughs half a breath out, feels it tighten and catch in his throat. He shifts her again, settles her head on the crook of his left arm, her legs tucked against his stomach. He blinks, looks down at her. She's sleeping peacefully.
His right hand hovers over her face. There's still a nasty bruise over her eyebrow, a scratch down one cheek, and he knows the inside of her legs are bruised as well, from her pulling at the seatbelts of her
(Kirsten had giggled the first time Ryan had tried unlatch the seatbelts of the carseat. It's impossible, Ryan had said, and Kirsten had laughed even more and Sophie had seemed to gurgle at him, call him stupid or something like that. Kirsten had laughed. Sophie had been five weeks old)
carseat that day. His hand curls into a fist. He wants to touch her, but fears doing it. He knows he'd never hurt her, but it pains him, somewhere inside he thinks went cold eleven days ago.
He swallows again, places her slowly on her crib. She snuffles in, her nostrils seeming to close as the sound is heard. She had been crying -- not crying, not really, whimpering, like she knows something's wrong but doesn't know what that is -- for an hour before Ryan was able to get her to settle. Not many people had come back with them, or he would have kicked them out himself.
He shifts, and his hip hurts like a son of a bitch, and his leg has started itching again, and it's starting to throb along with his heartbeat. The medication has to be wearing off, and the doctor did tell him to not put too much pressure on the leg, it was a nasty break, he's lucky it didn't need pins. He's glad for that, in the small corners of his mind (where he's not pissed as hell for being here and not them) where he knows he's thankful he's mobile or Sophie would have been all alone.
His face falls into a grimace. She's not even two years old. She's five weeks short of two years.
She won't remember them. She won't remember a thing about them. Not even Kirsten's smell, or Sandy's voice.
He swallows, turns his face away, and closes his eyes as he breathes in. An immeasurable time later, he lets go of his hold on the crib's railing he hadn't noticed he'd been holding, and turns around. He makes sure the baby monitor is on, then closes the door after himself, letting it fall ajar.
He walks down the stairs, counts them, doesn't know why, doesn't want to ask himself why. Maybe because he's going one step down at a time, maybe not. The cast on his leg and around his feet makes a hollow sound as it comes down onto the wooden floor. He should be using the crutches they gave him, but he can't handle them and Sophie at the same time, and he asked for this cast because it'd allowed him to walk for a reason. He has a kid to look after now.
The living room is empty. When he went upstairs, there had only been Dana and the Gardners and the Shellbys and Mrs. Landingham from down the street. Seth's standing by the fireplace, back against the edge of the mantel, glass of Merlot in his hand. He's reminded of Kirsten for a second
(It looks like the den back in Newport, doesn't it? I was hoping it would.)
and then he can breathe in and he looks away, makes his way slowly through the living room to the kitchen. There are ten different glass containers on the table, all with plastic lids in different colors, all holding different meals. Apparently, people think cooking equals--
"You shouldn't be putting weight on that foot."
Ryan snorts, because the first words that come to mind are not nice, and Kirsten would narrow her eyes at him if he said what he wanted to say. She'll say--
She won't say anything, but still. He swallows, looks up at Seth, notices the way Seth's hand is tight around the glass. How many glasses have you gone through? Where's the bottle? The thought is naked and ruthless, but this is his family (what he has left of it, fuck) and he sure as hell is not going through this all over again. Third one the charm can go fuck itself.
He glances at the couch looking at the TV set and Playstation, thinks about how they never got to use it, Seth always too busy on his visits to spend half an hour playing a game with him. Kirsten only wants us to-- Nothing. Wanted? Would have wanted?
His hand grips the edge of the table tighter, fucking pain medication, that's what it is. His jaw hurts, and he makes a conscious effort to unclench it.
He can't do this. He really can't. Not without them here, never without them here. But he is. He's going to. It's the only thing that seems to make sense right about now: Sophie.
"Are you in pain? You should be wearing your crutches."
Ryan shakes his head, once, tries to untangle whatever it is that wants to get around his brain, make it thick in its sleepiness. I shouldn't be here, that's what. I shouldn't--
"I'm fine," he grits out, because Seth needs an answer and he knows that if he doesn't give it now, Seth'll keep being an ass, continue to bug him until he either gives up or gives out, either of those two.
He turns around, makes his movement slow and deliberate, can feel his pulse throbbing on his big toe. He groans in the back of his throat, a sound that ends in a whisper, and picks up the first tray of food. He walks slowly to the kitchen, opens the fridge door. There already are three more here. Maybe Dana put them here. She's nice like that. Apparently people think people dying mean being hungry. He chokes on the word, on the thought.
"Ryan..."
That's as far as Seth goes, and Ryan doesn't fill the sentence with words. It's not his to fill. It never has been.
He finishes putting half containers inside, has no idea where to fit the other five. They'll go bad, if they are left out of the fridge. But there's no way they'll eat all these food (even if Seth stays for more than a day) by this week, maybe even the next one. A couple of them are just pie, and he likes pie, but he doesn't think he could eat it any time soon.
He's tired by the time he figures he'll at least place them in the cupboard, away from the table, anywhere but the table. He doesn't like look at the food. Too much of a reminder, too much of a slap on the face. His leg is throbbing, his neck hurts for reasons he doesn't know. The back of his eyes are pounding, figures it's his sinuses acting up. Kirsten gives him a pill for that. Gave him. His eyes winces shut, fuck.
"What happened?"
The words (two words, nothing more innocuous than two words), though said in pain, make his eyes open wide, make him turn around, stutter in his step, hit his left hip against the edge of the table. The pain makes an echo all the way down to his toes and he grinds his teeth against it, hears his molars crack against one another.
"Damn it, Ryan--"
A hand reaches out for him, tries to touch him (elbow, shoulder, forearm?), he jerks away. Seth blinks, looks up at him as if slapped. Something burns hot and warm in Ryan's chest, and he's glad for that. He's surprisingly glad for that.
Ryan's eyes narrow, anger flares up and he welcomes it, because it's the one thing he can use, right here, right now. "Don't you fucking ask me that." Seth blinks, confused, taken back. Hurt. Good. "Don't you--" He can't finish that sentence, he can't say that. He's not that person, he never has been. He can't hurt Seth like that and keep on breathing.
"Ryan, what are you--?"
"If you had just arrived in time!" The words leave him in a rush, stumbling through his lips. Maybe he can. He raises one hand, doesn't know what he wants to do it with, but he slams it down against the table, and it rattled under the weight. "If you had just fucking arrived in time maybe we wouldn't--"
"What? Ryan." Seth blinks, again and again. He takes a step forward and Ryan's jaw hardens. "What are you--?"
But then all the pieces fall into place for Seth to see, to hear what Ryan isn't saying.
"You think it's my fault."
Something aches inside Ryan's chest, cold and hungry, and hunger aches like nothing at all. "If you had arrived in time," he says, tiredly, his face nothing but a grimace. "If you had, we wouldn't have gone to the beach. You wouldn't have wanted to, and you always get what you want. We wouldn't have been there. This wouldn't have happened."
"You think it's my fault," Seth breathes out, and Ryan can see his eyes turning red, blurring. "Ryan."
"You missed your flight, Seth!" He blinks, and they ache, his eyes ache. "You missed your flight because you were talking with Summer, weren't you?"
And you didn't arrive the night before, you had to take the eleven am flight. Sandy thought we might as well just size the day, pick you up for dinner. If we hadn't-- If we hadn't gone to the beach-- If you hadn't--
"It wasn't my fault!"
"I know!"
Sun doesn't follow a storm, silence does.
Ryan's eyes close, and he turns around, away from Seth. His hands come down to the table, and he closes them into fists, knuckles digging into the wood and he thinks he won't be able to do this, not like this, not with Seth here.
He knows it wasn't Seth's fault, it wasn't, not really. It was bad timing an a asshole driving an SUV and then man reacting a second too late and everything and everyone conspiring against them so three kids would lose their parents. Seth knows that he knows, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.
There's a washcloth by his hand, on the table. He must have brought it over. He looks at it for a second, stares at it, then realizes he needs to clean the table. There are condensation rings all over the table. Kirsten hates that.
(would it kill you boys to use a coaster?)
Ryan picks it up, starts wiping the surface of the table. Silence is oppressing and not. Seth used to like to speak to him, almost at him. He stopped doing that along the same time he felt for Providence. He has Summer now, to whom he talks with long on the phone, as she's off saving the world. He knows that much, that little. He knows.
"Ryan--"
He doesn't pause, takes a step to the side, leans to the side, tilts his head, makes sure no rings have slipped by him. Kristen hates that.
Don't you fucking ask me that
He blinks, wipes the corner of the table one more time. Not the corner, not really. It's an oval table. Kirsten always says that corners when children are concern is not a good idea. Then again, Seth managed to him the noncorners of the oval table when he was four. Kirsten knows Ryan likes that story.
"Nothing."
Seth can finish thoughts and ideas and whole conversation by himself. Ryan lets him. He turns around, moves slowly, grits his teeth as the pain on his leg hits every nerve ending from toe to hair. He dumps the washcloth on the sink, watches it for a second. He opens the faucet and rinses it under the stream. At least that much hasn't changed.
That's all I have so far. The very first scene. Hmm. It hates me, see! *giggles* That's what happens when I kill off the Cohens.
I'm evil like that. Everyone knows. I am, as my icon says, mean in my love. I should really love them A LOT less. *giggles*
I've realized that this killing Sandy and Kirsten bit is a bit more difficult than I first imagined. It really, really is. Barely 2k and it was like pulling teeth, like finding an ending to a story I've been working on for about a month [The last to know]. That story (the one that won't let me finish it, damn it) it's almost 10k, it need for me to add about a couple of sentences to the scene and then write the last scene and it hates me. *grumbles*
That said, I'm still very much for previews. Reminds me of NaNo and the story that hates me. *giggles* One of the many.
Ryan shifts Sophie's lax limbs in his arms, already asleep, dead-- He coughs half a breath out, feels it tighten and catch in his throat. He shifts her again, settles her head on the crook of his left arm, her legs tucked against his stomach. He blinks, looks down at her. She's sleeping peacefully.
His right hand hovers over her face. There's still a nasty bruise over her eyebrow, a scratch down one cheek, and he knows the inside of her legs are bruised as well, from her pulling at the seatbelts of her
(Kirsten had giggled the first time Ryan had tried unlatch the seatbelts of the carseat. It's impossible, Ryan had said, and Kirsten had laughed even more and Sophie had seemed to gurgle at him, call him stupid or something like that. Kirsten had laughed. Sophie had been five weeks old)
carseat that day. His hand curls into a fist. He wants to touch her, but fears doing it. He knows he'd never hurt her, but it pains him, somewhere inside he thinks went cold eleven days ago.
He swallows again, places her slowly on her crib. She snuffles in, her nostrils seeming to close as the sound is heard. She had been crying -- not crying, not really, whimpering, like she knows something's wrong but doesn't know what that is -- for an hour before Ryan was able to get her to settle. Not many people had come back with them, or he would have kicked them out himself.
He shifts, and his hip hurts like a son of a bitch, and his leg has started itching again, and it's starting to throb along with his heartbeat. The medication has to be wearing off, and the doctor did tell him to not put too much pressure on the leg, it was a nasty break, he's lucky it didn't need pins. He's glad for that, in the small corners of his mind (where he's not pissed as hell for being here and not them) where he knows he's thankful he's mobile or Sophie would have been all alone.
His face falls into a grimace. She's not even two years old. She's five weeks short of two years.
She won't remember them. She won't remember a thing about them. Not even Kirsten's smell, or Sandy's voice.
He swallows, turns his face away, and closes his eyes as he breathes in. An immeasurable time later, he lets go of his hold on the crib's railing he hadn't noticed he'd been holding, and turns around. He makes sure the baby monitor is on, then closes the door after himself, letting it fall ajar.
He walks down the stairs, counts them, doesn't know why, doesn't want to ask himself why. Maybe because he's going one step down at a time, maybe not. The cast on his leg and around his feet makes a hollow sound as it comes down onto the wooden floor. He should be using the crutches they gave him, but he can't handle them and Sophie at the same time, and he asked for this cast because it'd allowed him to walk for a reason. He has a kid to look after now.
The living room is empty. When he went upstairs, there had only been Dana and the Gardners and the Shellbys and Mrs. Landingham from down the street. Seth's standing by the fireplace, back against the edge of the mantel, glass of Merlot in his hand. He's reminded of Kirsten for a second
(It looks like the den back in Newport, doesn't it? I was hoping it would.)
and then he can breathe in and he looks away, makes his way slowly through the living room to the kitchen. There are ten different glass containers on the table, all with plastic lids in different colors, all holding different meals. Apparently, people think cooking equals--
"You shouldn't be putting weight on that foot."
Ryan snorts, because the first words that come to mind are not nice, and Kirsten would narrow her eyes at him if he said what he wanted to say. She'll say--
She won't say anything, but still. He swallows, looks up at Seth, notices the way Seth's hand is tight around the glass. How many glasses have you gone through? Where's the bottle? The thought is naked and ruthless, but this is his family (what he has left of it, fuck) and he sure as hell is not going through this all over again. Third one the charm can go fuck itself.
He glances at the couch looking at the TV set and Playstation, thinks about how they never got to use it, Seth always too busy on his visits to spend half an hour playing a game with him. Kirsten only wants us to-- Nothing. Wanted? Would have wanted?
His hand grips the edge of the table tighter, fucking pain medication, that's what it is. His jaw hurts, and he makes a conscious effort to unclench it.
He can't do this. He really can't. Not without them here, never without them here. But he is. He's going to. It's the only thing that seems to make sense right about now: Sophie.
"Are you in pain? You should be wearing your crutches."
Ryan shakes his head, once, tries to untangle whatever it is that wants to get around his brain, make it thick in its sleepiness. I shouldn't be here, that's what. I shouldn't--
"I'm fine," he grits out, because Seth needs an answer and he knows that if he doesn't give it now, Seth'll keep being an ass, continue to bug him until he either gives up or gives out, either of those two.
He turns around, makes his movement slow and deliberate, can feel his pulse throbbing on his big toe. He groans in the back of his throat, a sound that ends in a whisper, and picks up the first tray of food. He walks slowly to the kitchen, opens the fridge door. There already are three more here. Maybe Dana put them here. She's nice like that. Apparently people think people dying mean being hungry. He chokes on the word, on the thought.
"Ryan..."
That's as far as Seth goes, and Ryan doesn't fill the sentence with words. It's not his to fill. It never has been.
He finishes putting half containers inside, has no idea where to fit the other five. They'll go bad, if they are left out of the fridge. But there's no way they'll eat all these food (even if Seth stays for more than a day) by this week, maybe even the next one. A couple of them are just pie, and he likes pie, but he doesn't think he could eat it any time soon.
He's tired by the time he figures he'll at least place them in the cupboard, away from the table, anywhere but the table. He doesn't like look at the food. Too much of a reminder, too much of a slap on the face. His leg is throbbing, his neck hurts for reasons he doesn't know. The back of his eyes are pounding, figures it's his sinuses acting up. Kirsten gives him a pill for that. Gave him. His eyes winces shut, fuck.
"What happened?"
The words (two words, nothing more innocuous than two words), though said in pain, make his eyes open wide, make him turn around, stutter in his step, hit his left hip against the edge of the table. The pain makes an echo all the way down to his toes and he grinds his teeth against it, hears his molars crack against one another.
"Damn it, Ryan--"
A hand reaches out for him, tries to touch him (elbow, shoulder, forearm?), he jerks away. Seth blinks, looks up at him as if slapped. Something burns hot and warm in Ryan's chest, and he's glad for that. He's surprisingly glad for that.
Ryan's eyes narrow, anger flares up and he welcomes it, because it's the one thing he can use, right here, right now. "Don't you fucking ask me that." Seth blinks, confused, taken back. Hurt. Good. "Don't you--" He can't finish that sentence, he can't say that. He's not that person, he never has been. He can't hurt Seth like that and keep on breathing.
"Ryan, what are you--?"
"If you had just arrived in time!" The words leave him in a rush, stumbling through his lips. Maybe he can. He raises one hand, doesn't know what he wants to do it with, but he slams it down against the table, and it rattled under the weight. "If you had just fucking arrived in time maybe we wouldn't--"
"What? Ryan." Seth blinks, again and again. He takes a step forward and Ryan's jaw hardens. "What are you--?"
But then all the pieces fall into place for Seth to see, to hear what Ryan isn't saying.
"You think it's my fault."
Something aches inside Ryan's chest, cold and hungry, and hunger aches like nothing at all. "If you had arrived in time," he says, tiredly, his face nothing but a grimace. "If you had, we wouldn't have gone to the beach. You wouldn't have wanted to, and you always get what you want. We wouldn't have been there. This wouldn't have happened."
"You think it's my fault," Seth breathes out, and Ryan can see his eyes turning red, blurring. "Ryan."
"You missed your flight, Seth!" He blinks, and they ache, his eyes ache. "You missed your flight because you were talking with Summer, weren't you?"
And you didn't arrive the night before, you had to take the eleven am flight. Sandy thought we might as well just size the day, pick you up for dinner. If we hadn't-- If we hadn't gone to the beach-- If you hadn't--
"It wasn't my fault!"
"I know!"
Sun doesn't follow a storm, silence does.
Ryan's eyes close, and he turns around, away from Seth. His hands come down to the table, and he closes them into fists, knuckles digging into the wood and he thinks he won't be able to do this, not like this, not with Seth here.
He knows it wasn't Seth's fault, it wasn't, not really. It was bad timing an a asshole driving an SUV and then man reacting a second too late and everything and everyone conspiring against them so three kids would lose their parents. Seth knows that he knows, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.
There's a washcloth by his hand, on the table. He must have brought it over. He looks at it for a second, stares at it, then realizes he needs to clean the table. There are condensation rings all over the table. Kirsten hates that.
(would it kill you boys to use a coaster?)
Ryan picks it up, starts wiping the surface of the table. Silence is oppressing and not. Seth used to like to speak to him, almost at him. He stopped doing that along the same time he felt for Providence. He has Summer now, to whom he talks with long on the phone, as she's off saving the world. He knows that much, that little. He knows.
"Ryan--"
He doesn't pause, takes a step to the side, leans to the side, tilts his head, makes sure no rings have slipped by him. Kristen hates that.
Don't you fucking ask me that
He blinks, wipes the corner of the table one more time. Not the corner, not really. It's an oval table. Kirsten always says that corners when children are concern is not a good idea. Then again, Seth managed to him the noncorners of the oval table when he was four. Kirsten knows Ryan likes that story.
"Nothing."
Seth can finish thoughts and ideas and whole conversation by himself. Ryan lets him. He turns around, moves slowly, grits his teeth as the pain on his leg hits every nerve ending from toe to hair. He dumps the washcloth on the sink, watches it for a second. He opens the faucet and rinses it under the stream. At least that much hasn't changed.
That's all I have so far. The very first scene. Hmm. It hates me, see! *giggles* That's what happens when I kill off the Cohens.
I'm evil like that. Everyone knows. I am, as my icon says, mean in my love. I should really love them A LOT less. *giggles*