I'm on the brink of disaster [OTA]

[lupusxylem]

Who: Nicholas D. Wolfwood and YOU
What: Catchall log for the aftermath of Saint Nick
When: December 26th onward
Where: Various
Warnings: Reckless behavior/irresponsible drinking



A) Staring down the consequences | OTA

[It's been a couple days, and Wolfwood is still...well, he sure is. And now it seems that the Grove all gets to have a say in the life and times of No Man's Land, so that's pretty Cool. While he does make sure to keep up with Vash's post and all of the responses out of a sense of schadenfreude, it doesn't exactly make him feel any better. Eventually, he has to put it away and go back outside for a while. Not into the Forest thankfully, but out into the snow just outside the Inn, dressed up in his coat from Heimr with a cigarette clutched tight in his teeth.

He's out here because he kindof has to be. He has a puppy on a leash, who has been waddling around in the snow for the last fifteen minutes, biting at the snowflakes and rolling around on the ground.

He watches, deadeyed, as she stuffs her face into a pile of snow all the way up to her neck.]

...please. Please, god.

[He's begging you

He is begging you to do your business he's so fucking tired]

B) To break hard would be better | Locked to Mizuki

[At some point when the puppy has been taken care of and is curled up asleep on his pillow, Wolfwood leaves again. He heads for the therapy building with full intent of going to the rage room and breaking more shit in the hopes it will help him feel less listless and dumb in the head.

Except...he gets there, and he sort of lingers in the middle of the lobby. Like he's lost, or he's forgotten where the room even is. Perhaps that's what it is, or maybe it's that he knows that breaking things isn't really the solution this time.

Maybe he should just leave.]

C) Tonight I'll do what it takes to fail | OTA

[...so anyway when that didn't work, Wolfwood decided to just grab the last of that whiskey bottle from his room and head back out to go wandering again. There's actually a lot of this town he hasn't visited for one reason or another, and the rec center is a place he flat out didn't know existed. Blessedly empty as it is, it's a siren song calling for him. He drags himself through the snow and inside.

...he's not expecting to find a giant like. Waterpark, or something, in here. Who the fuck built this?

He wanders as he periodically drinks straight from the bottle, wondering if the water is cold. It probably is since it's like two degrees outside. His footsteps echo loudly in the empty space, with pools scattered throughout. His feet are cold. Maybe it'd feel nice if he took his shoes off and just sat at the edge, assuming the pools are heated or something. Would somebody build this whole thing and NOT go to the trouble of doing that?

Fuck, he doesn't know. Nobody has this kind of money back home, and certainly not the resources to be wasting this much water. He sits down on the tile like a toddler and awkwardly kicks off his sockless, very wet (very sad, they're in BAD shape yall) shoes before scooting towards the water's edge.

If you show up right around now you'll just see Wolfwood sitting at the edge with his feet in the water. If you show up like, ten minutes later, it will be to the tune of somebody falling in.]

Comments

[lupusxylem]

[Wolfwood winces, just briefly, but it's long enough that Mizuki might notice if he's watching carefully. He starts to pace the room a little bit, reaching for more things to set up so he can break them.]

That's not- ...look. I don't really want to talk about why I do it. You say it depends on context, but that's just it. I didn't choose to do what I do, and because of that I'm suddenly this...

[He looks at the glass he'd been holding for the last few moments, staring at the warped version of his own reflection in it.]

Good guy, as if I ain't done awful shit with my life. And that because I'm so good, I deserve..."better".

[mooninthewater]

You deserve… “better”? Could you elaborate?

What does “better” even look like for you?

[lupusxylem]

[Wolfwood is mid-swing, rearing back with the sledgehammer, when Mizuki asks him a question that makes him actually stop. Not because he wants to actually ponder an answer, but because his stress-addled mind starts throwing up answers for him before he can think.

Better? ...Better would be to break his shackles, once and for all. To be able to live how he wanted without the guilt of knowing he'd be dooming another to follow in his footsteps if he did.

Better, is a life with Livio, alive and well and happy like he is here. Better...is fucking around with Vash again, without walking on eggshells or laden with the fear that he'll wake up to him having taken himself out of his life again, for his "own good". It's to be able to feel, just for a moment, how he felt when he and Vash spent the night together after that disastrous meeting.

He draws the sledgehammer back, then lowers it.]

...for me, it'd be to be able to make my own choices for once.

[mooninthewater]

[ Haha. Can’t relate. Imagine having your choices picked for you all the time, that sounds like Mizuki’s dream! He doesn’t say this out loud, though. It’s his job to help Wolfwood down his own path, not relate it to Mizuki’s. ]

What would you say are the things holding you back from doing this?

[lupusxylem]

Replace "things" with "people".

[He kicks a fallen vase across the floor with the toe of his shoe.]

You spend your entire life being gaslit and you start to not want to talk to anybody anymore.

[mooninthewater]

[ For a while, Mizuki stares at the mess of glass and ceramic on the ground. He might not be the smartest person, but he can put things together if they're all laid out like this. Vash and Wolfwood are both upset about an argument they had. Vash is obviously pushing people away. Wolfwood doesn't feel like he's able to make his own decisions… "deserves better". This all seems to track, honestly, considering Vash also told Mizuki he didn't deserve anything good. But… now he can see it hurting someone in real time.

He looks back at Wolfwood. He can't exactly just say "just cut ties with him, lol" or "lmao make urself worse ✌" or something like that. That's bad advice in general, but also for therapy. He is a little worried that the take away from that seems to be the latter, though, judging by the way that he's talking about himself. ]

But you are. [ Talking to people, he means. ] And… I'm happy you're talking to me, Wolfwood. [ He's Mizuki's patient right now, he can forego "Father". ]

Sometimes, people conflate their perceptions as reality, without realizing how they're liable to hurt people in the process. And then they'll try to impose their "reality" on others. That's why it's not a good idea to argue with them on their terms, since trying to debate what is real will just leave you depleted of energy and… frustrated. [ A gesture to the broken shards. ] It's important that you understand faulty logic and don't come to any conclusions that follow it.

With that in mind, any further discussions, then, should be on your terms.

[lupusxylem]

[See, Wolfwood wasn't expecting a genuine...answer. He was just expecting more "sorry" and "that's rough buddy" or something similar, because that's really all it ever is. Hollow platitudes that don't really help him in the long-term, especially when Wolfwood needs someone to tell him "this is okay" or "this wasn't okay". He wasn't raised. He wasn't...able to grow properly and mature emotionally enough to handle situations like these without flying off the handle. It's why he chose to punch Vash's lights out instead of calmly explaining why he was upset, though it's hard to say whether it would have gotten through anyway. He laid things out as clearly as he was able, and he still didn't get it.

What is he supposed to do then?

He wants to say he's only talking to Mizuki because Mizuki followed him in here, but. He did allow it. If he'd told him to get lost, he probably would have. But now he's here...and to his credit, Wolfwood is listening. Trying to, anyway.

He's lowered the sledgehammer completely now, listening to Mizuki with his back turned to him. He's staring at the glass on the floor, all broken and permanently irreparable.]

...how many times am I supposed to give someone second chances to have that discussion before it's too much. How many times am I gonna have to have the same circular argument...because it's starting to get old.

[mooninthewater]

Hm, well, that first question is, unfortunately, something I can't answer for you. Everyone has different tolerance. Everyone has a different capacity to handle someone else emotionally hurting them before they give up on them. But, do know that it's not your fault if you do want to give up on it. You're not alone here, and if you truly can't handle it anymore, you have people here to support you if there are ties you want to cut off.

However, if you want to make progress with that person, as I said, arguments are likely to keep going the same way if you intend to let them be on his... their terms. Which is to say... mmh... Let's say I claim I know water is blue. You know, without a shadow of a doubt, that water is clear, actually. Environments and reflections are often what makes water "change" color. You do everything to show me I'm wrong - you explain the chemical bonds, you even show me a bottle of water, and anything else that is irrefutable proof that water is clear.

I still say water is blue.

This is what I mean when I say this is something that they've accepted as their reality. It's not possible for them to skew their perceptions because you're trying to argue against them on it. It's better to not challenge their views, but talk about what's upsetting you instead.

You shouldn't talk about the water with me at all. The water doesn't matter. You have to talk about how you feel about the fact I'm not trying to see things from your point of view at all, and simply shutting down anything you try to tell me.

Does that make sense?

[lupusxylem]

[...

There's a long pause after Mizuki finishes talking. Wolfwood has been facing away the entire time, but unlike before, he isn't breaking things while they talk. He's stopped everything else to hear what he has to say.

Only when he's done does Wolfwood actually look at Mizuki directly for the first time since he came in.]

...it does. Yeah.

[It actually, really does. It basically describes all the problems he has with dealing with Vash, the problems Vash has dealing with other people, because he's so convinced he's undeserving of anything that he has to make that reality. In his mind, the longer Wolfwood stays, the more likely it is he'll get hurt, or worse. He gets that.

But that isn't what he cares about. And that's where they fail, every time.

Wolfwood exhales slowly, walking back over to the table still sitting up unbroken in the middle of the room, leaning the sledgehammer up next to it.]

I really don't wanna give up. It's just...talking to a brick wall gets to you after a while.

[But maybe that won't happen if he refuses to play its game.]

[mooninthewater]

Ehe, I get that. If you don't want to give up, then I'm not saying you have to.

[ He gets up from his chair, carefully making his way over to Wolfwood now since he's not trying to break things. He's not too fussed about the glass - he has shoes on, it's fine.

And then he hugs Wolfwood. ]

If you'd like... if you feel like you need someone else there at any point to have that conversation, you can just let me know. Or Mister Heimr, he's real good at these things, too.

[lupusxylem]

[Wolfwood has hugged so few people that he can actually count them on one hand. Livio. Vash.

...and now Mizuki. And unlike if it were anyone else, perhaps, he doesn't shrug him off or push him away.

He hesitates, holding himself like he isn't sure what to do, until he settles his weight forward, glass crunching underfoot. He puts one hand on the back of Mizuki's shoulders, the other coming up to rest atop his head.]

...thanks, kid. But I think this is something I gotta do on my own. Even if it means throttling him to get him to understand.

[Oh. Sounds like he's not trying to be vague anymore.