(no subject)
The past few months, Lucy would have admitted to without hesitation, had been far from easy. She had lost a lot of people over the two and a half years she'd been on the island, but never so many as she had recently, each somehow more painful than the last. In the past, she had said that she couldn't take any more of it, but that had clearly not been true; no matter how at her wits' end she felt, the island still sent people home or whatever, and that wasn't going to change just because she thought she was being driven crazy. It had taken a toll on her, of course - she was clearly far from happy on her good days, and drank more than she ever had back in New York - but she was still here, still holding onto her sanity, proving her own theory wrong. She could take more of it. Somehow, she always did, no matter how unprepared all of those losses left her for the inevitable next one.
What she had learned, though, was how to read the signs. A few things being gone, people not being in the usual places, more often than not, it all added up to one thing - another person vanished whom she hadn't expected to lose. It was supposed to have been totally innocent, walking over to Max's place just to see how he was doing, looking for company and some distraction, but she'd found the hut empty, which wasn't at all suspicious until she walked further, discovered that he wasn't with his crazy fucking alpaca, not at the Compound, nowhere in between. If he was hiding out somewhere, Jude would have been the logical person to ask, but there was no sign of him anywhere, either. Only in going back to Max's and finding it empty yet again, though, did it really sink in what she had been trying to ignore all day. Her brother, the one person for whom she would have done literally anything, was gone now, too, and she didn't have the first idea of what the fuck she was supposed to do with herself.
Evening finally found her out on the beach, a bottle in one hand - part of the gift that had shown up for her in January, the only thing she could thank the island for - and the chain of Max's dog tags wrapped around the other. In a way, even after the hours that had passed, it still felt utterly surreal, as if he was going to walk up at any time and laugh and explain that it had all been an elaborate joke, but intuitively, she knew better than that. If he were still there, she would have known it, and by now, she was certain he wasn't. "Fuck it, Max," she breathed, pausing long enough to take a drink from the bottle, her eyes red and glassy, though no tears fell. "It wasn't supposed to be you."
[I'm about to head out for just a couple of hours, but I wanted to get this up before I go. Anyone who needs to hear about Max (or Jude) disappearing, as well as anyone else, feel free to tag in; it is, obviously, not the greatest time to meet her, but new people are fine all the same. ST/LT more than welcome.]
What she had learned, though, was how to read the signs. A few things being gone, people not being in the usual places, more often than not, it all added up to one thing - another person vanished whom she hadn't expected to lose. It was supposed to have been totally innocent, walking over to Max's place just to see how he was doing, looking for company and some distraction, but she'd found the hut empty, which wasn't at all suspicious until she walked further, discovered that he wasn't with his crazy fucking alpaca, not at the Compound, nowhere in between. If he was hiding out somewhere, Jude would have been the logical person to ask, but there was no sign of him anywhere, either. Only in going back to Max's and finding it empty yet again, though, did it really sink in what she had been trying to ignore all day. Her brother, the one person for whom she would have done literally anything, was gone now, too, and she didn't have the first idea of what the fuck she was supposed to do with herself.
Evening finally found her out on the beach, a bottle in one hand - part of the gift that had shown up for her in January, the only thing she could thank the island for - and the chain of Max's dog tags wrapped around the other. In a way, even after the hours that had passed, it still felt utterly surreal, as if he was going to walk up at any time and laugh and explain that it had all been an elaborate joke, but intuitively, she knew better than that. If he were still there, she would have known it, and by now, she was certain he wasn't. "Fuck it, Max," she breathed, pausing long enough to take a drink from the bottle, her eyes red and glassy, though no tears fell. "It wasn't supposed to be you."
[I'm about to head out for just a couple of hours, but I wanted to get this up before I go. Anyone who needs to hear about Max (or Jude) disappearing, as well as anyone else, feel free to tag in; it is, obviously, not the greatest time to meet her, but new people are fine all the same. ST/LT more than welcome.]