the day the world is over we'll be lying in bed
[Dated to late night May 3/early May 4. Warning for potentially triggering SI content.]
It was long past the time when he would usually have gone to make a spirited attempt at sleeping, but the thought of doing that tonight was not an appealing one. He knew it was going to be one of those nights he was kept awake by the silence until he would have screamed if the silence weren't too perfect to break.
The answer, of course, was not to let it get that quiet in the first place, to which end he was going to the rec room instead. That music box was never quiet, and it was late enough that it was emptying out, so it was perfect, really, whether he ever got to sleep or not.
When the world ends
Collect your things
You’re coming with me
Well, it would have been perfect, if the box had been kinder. It was better than silence, and usually he wasn't bothered by apocralyptic imagery in its songs, but it wasn't nice when it was the only thing outside his head, already full inside of Lucy's shock and Cora's grimace. Not their fault, it was a big thing to hear of suddenly, and probably a horrible one.
Around about I'm gonna rock you like a baby when the cities fall, Coin decided that the sound was simply not going to be enough anymore. It was good that the raw force all around him was gone, of course it was, because it meant that the world would stay stable even if he couldn't, but it meant a numbness quite apart from the silence, and no music box could fill that so he brought his arms up to clutch each other as tightly as they possibly could, which didn't feel anything like any of it had felt like before but it was something. And when his nails dug in, it only felt better.
As they moved, he could almost forget where he was; the friction of skin on skin was almost a little like being burned, but a new kind that was okay because he was doing it and not because he'd done wrong, and the scratches up and down were almost nice and certainly enough load on the senses to fill up his skull. By the time it broke the skin he barely even heard the singing about how the love you got is surely all the love that I would ever need and didn't care about what he did hear.
And then it was enough. He even felt like he could sleep, though he didn't feel like going all the way back downstairs so he just rearranged the sofa cushions and stretched out. His forearms twinged, but it wasn't really that much different from when he ached from hiking further than he was ready for. A good ache.
By the time the song was over, he was almost asleep. By the time he woke up, the welts had almost faded.
It was long past the time when he would usually have gone to make a spirited attempt at sleeping, but the thought of doing that tonight was not an appealing one. He knew it was going to be one of those nights he was kept awake by the silence until he would have screamed if the silence weren't too perfect to break.
The answer, of course, was not to let it get that quiet in the first place, to which end he was going to the rec room instead. That music box was never quiet, and it was late enough that it was emptying out, so it was perfect, really, whether he ever got to sleep or not.
When the world ends
Collect your things
You’re coming with me
Well, it would have been perfect, if the box had been kinder. It was better than silence, and usually he wasn't bothered by apocralyptic imagery in its songs, but it wasn't nice when it was the only thing outside his head, already full inside of Lucy's shock and Cora's grimace. Not their fault, it was a big thing to hear of suddenly, and probably a horrible one.
Around about I'm gonna rock you like a baby when the cities fall, Coin decided that the sound was simply not going to be enough anymore. It was good that the raw force all around him was gone, of course it was, because it meant that the world would stay stable even if he couldn't, but it meant a numbness quite apart from the silence, and no music box could fill that so he brought his arms up to clutch each other as tightly as they possibly could, which didn't feel anything like any of it had felt like before but it was something. And when his nails dug in, it only felt better.
As they moved, he could almost forget where he was; the friction of skin on skin was almost a little like being burned, but a new kind that was okay because he was doing it and not because he'd done wrong, and the scratches up and down were almost nice and certainly enough load on the senses to fill up his skull. By the time it broke the skin he barely even heard the singing about how the love you got is surely all the love that I would ever need and didn't care about what he did hear.
And then it was enough. He even felt like he could sleep, though he didn't feel like going all the way back downstairs so he just rearranged the sofa cushions and stretched out. His forearms twinged, but it wasn't really that much different from when he ached from hiking further than he was ready for. A good ache.
By the time the song was over, he was almost asleep. By the time he woke up, the welts had almost faded.