I might crumble, I might take a fall again [open]

[quietsideways]

There's a house on a vaguely upscale residential street. Up until yesterday it only had one interesting thing about it, which was the paint scheme involving blue and green stripes. Not exactly worth a second glance, in a world like this one, but still, it was there

Comments

[itllhurtifido]

John's on one of his occasional walks around town when he notices that someone's apparently over on the Tillotson place's porch. Someone he doesn't recognize... and who's crying. Hrm. He turns off the street onto the path up to the porch.

"Excuse me, miss?" He tips his hat -- a fedora, as befits his older style of suit, in brown today -- as he approaches. "Are you all right?"

[quietsideways]

Madeline goes quiet when he starts talking, and it takes her a while to lift her head from her arms and give John a glossy, not-quite-there glance. There's a small, clear string of snot connecting her nose to her sleeve until she sniffs, loudly, and rubs at her face.

"Nuh - nuh -" she stops, turning away to stare at her arms folded over her knees, and shakes her head, slowly.

[itllhurtifido]

Yeah, there's not going to be much talking from her just now. Not very much of a surprise, given how long, to his eye, it looks like she's been running her waterworks. Well, first things first... He reaches up to his breast pocket and pulls out the handkerchief he has stuffed there. (It's clean, even, since he hasn't needed to use it either for its traditional purpose or, as has been more common recently, as a bandage.)

"Here. You might find this works better." He offers the handkerchief. John's voice is slightly rough, but his tone is fairly gentle. He considers offering her a belt from his hip flask as well, but he knows that attitudes about that sort of thing have changed from back in his day, so he thinks better of it.

[quietsideways]

She stares at it like he's offering her some strange and alien device instead of a square of cloth for longer than seems really right, before reaching out and tentatively tugging it from his hand.

It almost feels like an accomplishment, and that's enough to make her stay as quiet as she can while she tries to clean up. Now that's she got something that's not already slimy with tears, spit, and snot, she can actually manage to mop up some of the mess.

When she's accomplished as much as she has the presence of mind for (not much) she crumples the handkerchief in one hand and nods vaguely in his direction, biting her lip.

[howitshouldgo]

Gabriel is taking a walk. He needs one, because he needs to think. He usually works on his own little projects when he needs to think, but this was a subject of some actual importance. He'd been feeling sort of antsy about it.

So he's walking. And definitely not walking towards the inn, because that would involve making an actual decision. No, he's walking through rows and rows of empty houses. Everything is so quiet now. It's nice.

But it makes it very obvious when someone on the street is crying. Hmmm. He's passing by, so he turns and walks onto the lawn, closer to the porch.

"Are you all right?" That's a bad starting point, but it's what comes into his head.

[quietsideways]

What else could he say, though, really?

Madeline's on the dying edge of a crying jag, which means her head's clutched between her hands as she struggles to breathe properly. (Karen couldn't breathe properly, Alex couldn't, no one could so why?)

For a second after she notices Gabriel she tries to remember if the man with the grocery girl said his name or not but...it's too hard. She twists her head a little to look at him blearily for a while, as a little niggling thought tries to get her attention -

Oh. Yes. She has to actually say something back.

"No."

[howitshouldgo]

"Oh." He seems to be thinking of what else to say, or concentrating on a hard math problem. It's hard to tell. "What's wrong?"

[quietsideways]

Madeline looks at her knees again, wrapping her arms around them to hold them closer to her chest. The ends of her sleeves are wrapped around her fists, and grow a little tauter as she hands close completely again.

She takes a soft, shaky breath, and organizes her answer.

"...Karen. I...this is her house and she's upstairs but she's..." Madeline closes her eyes and breathes out through clenched teeth, and though it's not possible to curl up more she tries anyway.