i'm headed straight for the castle (open post)

[hext]

CONTINUED THREADS | NEW THREADS | PROMPTS | CHAOS

Comments

[hext]

no.

[ it isn't precisely a lie, but it isn't true, either. nothing she can shape her thoughts toward asking of him, or even asking of herself. not today, or even tomorrow. ]

it was an overcompensation for the loss of contact. something in my consciousness has linked itself to yours — or perhaps it is the other way around.

i am working on finding a way to undo it. easier to concentrate now that you're back.

[freights]

that's funny, since it's easier for me to concentrate when i'm away.
no offense.

[ ... the other way around? it's something he hasn't really considered -- the possibility of an active link instead of a simple lack of ... something, some sort of boundary. ]

this sort of thing ever happen to you before?

[ with your brother, maybe? he wonders fleetingly, but thinks better of mentioning it. ]

[hext]

[ he's exactly right in his suspicions. and she'd dragged her way there unwillingly to that conclusion, hoping it had been her own negligence, that she just needed to be stronger with this particular wall, this fortress.

it doesn't matter that he doesn't say it. there has only ever been one similar bond. but with pietro it had been organic, bone of her bone, flesh and blood all in cohesion. it spread between and out from them like tree roots, became part of their DNA.

this, with bucky. it begins as a car crash.
they're both injured, but the wounds don't match.

when one of you has whiplash and the other has vertigo, but you're both drowning in a pit of PTSD and survivor's guilt, what do you do? every man for himself? struggle together? ]

only once.
differently.

[ wanda is fairly certain the strategy to survive a pit of quicksand is to stay very still. ]

[freights]

listen
thanks for answering my questions.

i can understand why you might be reluctant to, considering how i reacted before.

[hext]

some things you deserve to know.
like you said. it's only fair.

[ there's a pause, for about a minute in length. ]

i had one other problem while you were away, that i suppose made the others worse. or it could have been vice versa.

[freights]

what's that?

[hext]

[ there's another stretch of silence for maybe thirty seconds. things that are difficult to swallow and then put to language. ]

i missed you.

[ that monolith of vulnerability will have to be goodnight for now. the food is here. she turns her phone over so she can stare at it and decidedly not eat until it gets cold. ]