Party Talk

[solitarysoul]

Who: Levi and ???
What: Daily routine sort of things free to be bothered by others
When: Later in the month, days and non-event nights
Where: Community Hall

Content Warnings: Child soldiers, child abuse and mental illness (PTSD/Depression). Will note anything others in subjects!


#1: Maybe I will pick up piano once more... ((OTA))

It was late, but Levi was awake and didn't think he'd be going back to bed soon. Too many dreams. So he takes the time to (quietly!) explore the Community Hall and ends up at the piano. A piano...well, he was feeling melancholy already.

Long, long ago his mother used to play. She had tried to teach him some...but that was a lifetime ago. Before the war, before even the orphanage. The memories he has of his mother were some of--perhaps the only--good memories he had. And yet, despite that, he could barely remember her face. Just how nice she had been, the times they sat down together and she'd read to him or try to teach him the piano. How his father hadn't deserved someone like her...and That Night.

He sighs deeply and presses a few keys. Back in Prehevil he'd proven he didn't really remember any songs. Still, late in the night and alone in the dark he wishes he did. Maybe there was someone here...no. No, he didn't need to burden them with his issues. He should just forget it. He wasn't fit for piano anyway.

Another few taps and he turns to leave, but it seemed he wasn't alone after all. "Ah...hi. Sorry to disturb you...I-I didn't mean to."


#2: For so long I've been nothing but a scope behind a rifle... ((OTA))

Not long after dawn, Levi had claimed a table to do weapon maintenance. He'd eaten, and he'd go scouting soon but first he wanted to make sure everything was working. As he did every day, but it was in a way meditative. Something to focus on, though he could do it in his sleep.

The boy's rifle is laid out on the table before him, currently disassembled, as he wiped down the barrel with a rag he'd picked up somewhere in town. He doesn't seem to notice if anyone approaches, but if they stayed for a bit or said something he would.


#3: Just looking for the next moving target... ((OTA, free bullets to good home))

After returning from scouting (read: wandering through town and looting what little is left in the unclaimed houses), the boy in the army coveralls claims a quiet corner. Any ammo, of any sort, he found he'd claimed and stuffed in his satchel, and by now he'd amassed an okay amount. So he was sitting there, sorting them by type. His rifle took .303 rounds, so any of those went right back in the satchel sitting next to his rifle. The rest, though, he was organizing into little piles.

He wasn't really sure what to do with it all. While he had claimed a handgun for back up, he didn't really see the need to take any other guns. So he's not really sure what he'll do with all the ammo he couldn't use, or the excess ammo for his revolver (he didn't plan to use it much). Find somewhere to leave it for people? But letting just anyone take them might not be wise. There was at least one person who looked like a kid here, and he'd never let another child hold a gun. There had been too many, and there were enough adults here that they could handle the wolves and whatever else.

If anyone approaches he'll look up, but hesitate to speak.


#4: I don't want to go back to that. ((Open, but one only please))

Levi never slept well. In the Community Hall, in the company of other people, he slept better than he had in the houses and stores. Since he was young he'd slept with others. The orphanage only had large rooms where one had to claim their own bed...or sleep on the floor. It was rare that there weren't enough people to fill all the beds. Just when someone got too old and was kicked out. Or, more likely but still thankfully rare, when someone disappeared.

In the army, in the barracks, the trenches, or wherever they stopped on missions, he'd been with at least one squad. At least then there were enough cots or bedrolls for everyone. Even after he'd returned to his home town he'd mostly slept with others near by. Only two nights, but save a couple naps here and there throughout the town, the other contestants had been near by.

But almost every time he slept, he had nightmares. There were so many things in his past that haunted him. That his brain wouldn't let him forget. Most nights he'd just toss and turn then wake after a few hours. Sometimes he'd get back to sleep, other times he'd be awake for the day. Some nights... some nights the dreams were worse. He'd toss and turn like normal, sometimes talking or crying in his sleep. The worst nights he'd awake with a start, with a gasp or even crying out for someone or something.

He tried to sleep apart from the others as not to bother them. But he still slept nearby, close enough to anyone else that he might wake up someone else. During one of his worst nightmares he awakens with a start and a cry of "No!"


#? Wildcard! ((OTA, feel free to make up your own))
Levi's spending most of the nights--except wolf nights--a good part of the evenings and some mornings in the Community Hall these days. It was safe, especially now that Methuselah was gone (there was no way that guy could be trusted), and it was warm. Warm enough to tide him over for awhile, at least. He keeps to himself mostly, rarely talking to the others unless spoken to first. But he wouldn't completely shun company.

((i default to prose but will match style))

Comments

#4

[moralabsolutism]

Rorschach had meant to make his way back to one of the safehouses he'd established. He didn't trust anyone here for all that he'd fought alongside or protected some of them. It was nothing personal. Just his natural paranoia at work, the kind that saw shadows around every corner and found conspiracies in imaginary patterns. But the snow had started this day and the wind was bitterly cold. So he found himself in the Community Hall with all the rest of the Interlopers.

He had trouble sleeping at all times of the day but especially at night. He'd patrolled the streets of NYC night after night, usually starting just after dark and not returning back to his apartment until just before dawn. So right now he was wide awake. He curled up in a corner and pulled out his journal, scribbling softly in it.

When he heard someone tossing and turning, he didn't think much of it at first. But the sounds of restless sleep continued and so he got up to see who it was. He remembered Levi from the few times they'd met. He loomed over him, wondering if it was better to wake him up or let him sleep. Then he woke up on his own.

Levi would find the black-and-white masked face staring down at him without saying anything at first.

[solitarysoul]

The sight of Rorschach's masked face causes him to scramble off the cot, away from the other man. But his brain catches up to being awake by the time he's on his feet and he recognizes him. Probably not (currently?) a threat (he's still not sure if Rorschach is human or not though). He shouldn't need the rifle under his bed.

He swallows, "S-sorry...You startled me."

Yes, he's the one apologizing here.

[moralabsolutism]

Anyone with a slightly higher level of social skills would have said there was no need to apologize or tried to comfort Levi. Rorschach being Rorschach, he didn't even consider either of those ideas. He had empathy for the fact the boy clearly had been having bad dreams, stunted as it was, but it was hard for him to express it.

"Nightmare?" was all he asked.

[solitarysoul]

"Y-yeah..." He says, somewhat sheepishly and looking away from the other man.

"That's normal, though."

[moralabsolutism]

"Hurm." The strange sound that was neither really a growl or a grunt but a unique sound all its own was the only acknowledgement that came forth at first of what Levi had said. He was actively trying to figure out what he should say next. He finally figured it out.

"What about?" Was that a personal question that he probably shouldn't have asked? Maybe? He honestly didn't know anymore what social niceties looked like and so had no idea if this was something he should have said.

[solitarysoul]

"Uh." Oh boy that sure was, but Levi's not too used to social niceties either. Instead he worries about bothering Rorschach with his issues. He fidgets, scratching an arm idly. "J-just...you know. Bad things."

His life.

[moralabsolutism]

Bad things huh. Rorschach wondered exactly what had happened to this kid before coming here. Whatever it was, it had caused him to learn how to use a gun at a young age, so clearly it hadn't been an easy life.

Rorschach could have left the subject there but he was a detective and liked to figure out puzzles, especially when they were right in front of him. "Like what?" He had no idea if the kid would even answer him but he could at least ask.

cw: kids being sent to war

[solitarysoul]

"Well, um, I've been to war...and, um, yeah."

[moralabsolutism]

Rorschach nodded in a thoughtful manner, hand coming up to rest underneath his chin. That made sense. They'd only just really begun to understand how war affected mental health in the last five years or so in his own world.

"Can relate." He said. For Rorschach, the war he fought was one of his own making, the war against evil that he'd never be able to stop fighting.

[solitarysoul]

"Yeah so...I dream about that a lot. Its never good."

[moralabsolutism]

"Want to talk more about it?" If nothing else, being so quiet meant the vigilante was a great listener. He never just sat there half-listening, just waiting for his own turn to say whatever it was on his mind. No, Rorschach gave his full attention when people spoke.

cw: war, death, children being sent to war and dying

[solitarysoul]

Did he want to talk about it?  Normally the answer would be no, just let me try and forget about it.  But in the dead of night, where most everyone is asleep so he's essentially alone with someone he considers a fellow soldier...he lets his tounge slip a little.  He sits back down in the bed and fixes his gaze firmly on the floor.

"I spent most of the war in the trenches.  It would start out with a bunch of us, practicly shoulder to shoulder sometimes, filling them and waiting for the enemy to do something.  As time went on there were less and less people...living ones at least.  I lived, but so many people didn't make it."  He puts his head in his hands, voice breaking but never quite crying. "So many boys didn't make it.  I'd watch someone poke his head out and have it get blown away.  Grenades thrown in just far enough away to spare me, but not everyone.  Once an artillary round landed right on where our wounded were being kept.  And just...more.  More people wounded, killed.  I didn't come out unscratched, but they never got me.  I was just lucky, it never should have been me who survived.  There were so many that I just...I couldn't save.  I'd fire a second too late, shift the baracade just the wrong way, step away at just the wrong moment.  And somebody I knew would die.  No matter how hard I tried, I could never save them."

[moralabsolutism]

Rorschach had never been a soldier. He'd been old enough to serve in Vietnam but his draft number had never come up. Sometimes he wondered if he should have volunteered, that perhaps that would have better than becoming a masked vigilante. But there was no undoing the past. He'd chosen his path in life and there was no changing that.

But he could understand that sense of being unable to save people. Of being stuck in a war that never seemed to end. His own personal one against evil, something that would never, ever end no matter what he did. So he nodded slowly. His body language became a little less closed off as he tried to do his best to empathize with Levi. "Understand that. A little. Remember the ones you don't save more than the ones you do."

[solitarysoul]

"I'm not sure if I ever saved anyone..." He's wrong, of course, but Rorschach is right. It's much easier to remember the ones you failed.

Though, he had saved some in Prehevil, hadn't he? He wasn't sure he believed that but someone there had said that to him more than once.

"...maybe I can do better here."

[moralabsolutism]

"Good idea. Try not to look back," Rorschach counseled. "Move forward. Do better when you can." If he'd been a more eloquent sort, he would have been able to tell Levi about his own struggles with doing just that, how he dwelt on the past and how it had shaped him into who he was today. How he'd learned never to compromise as a way to be able to continue to function instead of breaking completely down.

But he'd always had trouble with expressing himself verbally for all that he could write eloquently for pages when he scribbled down in his journal. The few stunted phrases were all that he could manage to get out.

[solitarysoul]

"I...I try." He rarely feels like he does, though. And when he does he doesn't think it makes up for all those he's failed. "Moving forward...that's all I can do. I don't want to lay down and die."

He hadn't even been able to do that when the Voice urged him to. He didn't deserve a peaceful end like that, though that wasn't quite the same as the survival instinct drilled into him his whole life.

[moralabsolutism]

"Death is for the weak." At least in a place like this it was. The dangers here provided by the weather and environment were just as bad as the ones that appeared to be supernatural in nature. If you were strong, you survived. If not, you perished. Of course, he said that, and yet was still dedicated to keeping people safe. Such was one of the many paradoxes held within Rorschach's mind he was unable to fully reconcile.

"Don't think you are weak." A rare compliment from the vigilante. He didn't give them out lightly and only spoke the truth when he did.

[solitarysoul]

"I don't know...I've seen strong men die. Sometimes it all happens so suddenly...but strong people don't give up. As long as they're alive they're fighting."

There's a tiny smile at the compliment, even if he's not sure he agrees with it. "Thanks."

[moralabsolutism]

He blinked in surprise at seeing the small smile on Levi's face, the "expression" on his face made up of the moving spots splitting off and quickly moving to the farthest reaches they could go. He wasn't one much for interacting with people even just to make small talk, let alone providing comfort to someone. Yet here he was doing just that.

Rorschach nodded. "Fighting. Yes. Needed to survive place like this."

[solitarysoul]

He's not used to being complimented at all, or comforted. But he thinks its nice that someone thinks he's strong. He tries to be, at least.

He nods a bit, "I've been fighting all my life. I'm not going to stop now."

[moralabsolutism]

"Good." That was all that Rorschach said. He felt he'd done enough in his own peculiar way to help out Levi. This was as much comfort as he was able to provide thanks to the way his emotions were stunted. He started to move away from the bed, back into the gloom of the room.

[solitarysoul]

"Yeah...thanks."

He watches Rorschach move away for a moment then looks to his bed. How likely was sleep if he tried? Hm.