hollowchild | IC Inbox

....oh

[What does one say to that though, really.]

I will, however, take it from this message that you're alive, presumably with your limbs intact.

[give her a minute before figuring out she should probably be a little more helpful on the identity front]

It's Sophie.

sophie?

i sent you a message earlier

It must have ended up elsewhere. This is the first I've heard from you. So, limbs intact?

great. so i just told some random stranger all that stuff

well whatever. yeah everything is fine. i... got healed

What stuff? I'm glad you did. I probably shouldn't have fussed at you as much as I did. It's still strange, caring about people. My own pain doesn't matter very much, but it's much harder to watch someone else suffer and be utterly helpless. As much as I want to shake you for going back out there, in the end I can't say for sure that I wouldn't have done the same thing. It's not like I haven't done my share of stupid things, although admittedly most of those happened when losing limbs or dying were unlikely outcomes. Not that you cared. I might not have either. Brave, but stupid. That's what love is, I suppose.

What stuff? I'm glad you did.

[Isaac is initially confused- he wants to tell her that she's sent him two messages, but after a moment of thinking (thinking before speaking? Isaac?) he bites his lip and sits back down, reading over the first one sent. He might not realize exactly what happened, but he's self aware enough to know that she probably didn't mean to tell him all of this.

Stupidly, his first impulse is to argue, because love isn't really something that can apply to him, in any form of the word, in any sort of way. He's loyal to people, he trusts people, but it's nowhere near as vulnerable as love.

(Isaac is often wrong, even about himself. Especially about himself)

But then he reads it again, finds another meaning in her message, and is conflicted how to answer her. Should he disregard what she obviously never meant to tell him? Or should he... at least try to address it?]

for what its worth

i dont know what to do with people caring about me. everyone walks around me like im some kind of bomb about to go off. im not totally irresponsible though. everyone thinks i am

but i think im a lot like you actually. its not that i think i wont get hurt i just... people like us we know a hell thats worse than any punch. i close my eyes sometimes and i can still feel walls around me and getting the shit beat out of me feels a lot better than keeping my eyes shut. i think you know exactly what i mean.

next time well fight together

[she sits there and stares at the message for a long time. it's like he pulled the thoughts out of her head, or read the message she hadn't sent. the message she didn't send. it's mortifying, and yet.

she reads the words again, lets them soak in, the mortification fading to a dull sort of shock. cocky and unfeeling is only the outer layer of isaac's armor, she's known for a long time that what's underneath it is much more soft and brittle and bruised and vulnerable, more vulnerable than isaac believes himself to be. he doesn't try for the exact same reasons that she tries so, so hard, and she can understand that. he told her from the very beginning that he didn't know how to have friends, and she didn't doubt him. for as much as she'd always extend a hand to him, sophie never expected him to be the one who reached out. not like this.

and yet.

her teeth close around her lower lip, worry at it until it's swollen and dark with blood, and she takes slow breaths against the burn behind her eyelids. there are few things that frustrate her more than not being able to force her face blank and blink away her tear ducts]

You aren't a bomb, and you aren't totally irresponsible. If you were, I wouldn't have agreed to teach you anything. You're just Isaac. I'm just afraid. Sometimes that matters more than other times. I do know what you mean. It feels so much better to just fight and fight until you can't anymore, like maybe that's enough. That was easier when I didn't matter to anybody. I'm not very good at being good, it turns out. I think you know what I mean. Next time we'll fight together. I know you'll have my back.

do you want to know a secret?

im afraid too. im afraid of a lot of things. youre scared of me getting hurt and i... i dunno

my dad used to do nice things. he used to come to me when i messed up and take my hand and say its okay well work through this together. its okay but you just have to learn and then hed start twisting until i couldnt hold a pencil at school the next day.

when people are nice to me i get scared and i start looking for ways they can hurt me. im not good at being nice back. im not good at letting people be kind to me. when you put me in the bathtub i hurt you. i couldnt handle that i couldnt handle messing up like i did. its easier to twist your own fingers than to have someone else do it for you, you know? i know you wont hurt me unless you have to but i cant...

hell i dont know. im rambling right now. everything was just really crazy then i guess

ill try not to get hurt again though

Those aren't really nice things. That's something else. It's cruel. Christine has done it to me before. She invited me into her house, sat me at her table. Fed me. Fed me poison. There's no kindness there. Just a trap. And I fell for it, because she's still my twin. Hope is the cruelest thing. You hurt me, but you didn't mean to hurt me. You didn't hurt me because you were angry, you weren't punishing me for anything. You didn't even know you did it. It was an accident. Your father, Christine, they are not accidents. And I don't care if you hurt me like that. They're just scratches. I do worse to myself all the time. And I suppose that's the point, isn't it? For both of us. I knew you were going to leave, that there was nothing I could do to stop you without hurting you and I couldn't hurt you any more. There was enough already. My shadows were gone, I couldn't have gone and protected us both. There was nothing I could do. I don't know how to cope with being that helpless. I'm afraid. I'm afraid all the time. It's not that you'll get hurt. I know you'll get hurt, this is a war. It's about suffering, about helplessness. That's what I don't want to happen to you. There has never been anyone to worry about before. Maybe I don't know how to do that right either. There is no real way for two people to promise they won't hurt each other. I don't think that is a promise anyone can really keep. But I would never hurt you on purpose. And it's all right if you can't believe that.

youre right. i cant promise you i wont get hurt. this is probably going to get a lot worse before it gets better and i dont even know if im going to live to see 17 anyway

but... i believe you. when you say you wouldnt hurt me on purpose.

[And that sounds like common sense, it sounds trifling, but it's huge. Isaac only really thinks that of two people now, and the second one is obvious.]

i wont hurt you either. not if i can help it

Thank you for believing me. I think I understand a little how much that means. At least a little. I believe you, too.

[because it's not actually a small thing on her end, either. sophie believes that almost all things end in hurt, knows that it's isaac's first instinct to lash out, to hurt what gets too close. her reply is short, but it takes a long time, because she has to keep pausing and blinking fast to see the screen]

...yeah

[But he doesn't really have anything more to say in that vein, and he doesn't know if he wants to, so he awkwardly sort of changes the subject.]

did everyone on your end make it through okay?

Injuries all around, but they lived.

[she wouldn't exactly call that okay, but it will have to do]

Scott is back?

yeah. with allison right now

i guess hes safe though which is good

It is. That was your goal, after all. And Erica?

shes fine. we sort of made up i guess

but were not really talking about it so idk

IC Inbox - closed

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

[this was never meant to be sent]

[but this was]

oops

oh god all of my feels

D8

children stop

:C not ok

they are precious and perfect and horrible

they aaare

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject