jigokulogs | [OPEN] only god can see what i've become.

⬤ Andy @ the CR Meme ⬤
⬤ Permissions Post ⬤

Who ⬤ Andromache of Scythia (now of Enma) & YOU!
What ⬤ The bastard woman drinks and brawls her way through May substories
When ⬤ Throughout the month of May
Where ⬤ A bar, a backlot, and a bloody arena
Content Warnings ⬤ Profanity, violence, substance use, sex, etc. To be updated as needed!

A | MOON MEDICINE / SUBSTORY #1

[ This might be the most alive she's felt since arriving in hell. Whatever the fuck was in that medicinal mochi — it's like being high on cocaine and bloodlust at the same time. It feeds into that part of her that has always loved a fight. That up-close and personal shit where you can practically smell your opponent's breath. That's what she was raised on, seven thousand years ago on the Eurasian steppe — heir of the warrior-queen, bare and bloody on the battlefield, her mother's axe in her right hand.

No axe now. No battlefield either. Just the dirty alley out behind some dive bar. But that look in her eye is the same now as it was back then, wild and bright as she slams her fist into the unrecognizable pulp that was formerly the face of the yokai who had gotten fresh with her inside. Her knuckles are split open, but she doesn't seem to notice. Tunnel vision, everything else utterly irrelevant while her opponent is still standing — and he is, just barely. Just enough to take another clumsy swing at her, a move so obvious and slow that, in her violent fervor, she barks out a mean laugh, teeth bared. Bracing herself, she lets gravity do most of the work as she catches her victim by the clothes and flings him out of the alley towards street —

Right into anyone unfortunate enough to be passing by. ]

B | VEND ME A DREAM / SUBSTORY #2

[ Normally, on a day like this, Andy would have found some way to drink herself into oblivion by now. But she's spent most of her time in hell hungover, and somewhere between the constant headaches and violent nausea, she figured her newly mortal body was probably begging her for a break from the bottle. But being both idle and sober lends itself too readily towards her tendency to wallow uselessly in her own misery, so when the shirime approaches her with its winking butthole and a request for item A5, well...

Fuck it. It's not as if she has anything better to do.

That's how she winds up in that backlot, leaning up against a porno vending machine with a dwindling cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth as she flips through Juicy Peaches. The look on her face is one of stoic apathy, but either she's bored or the asses within are just that compelling, because she's still turning pages. This page in particular has her head turning slightly one way, then the other as she considers it. Out loud, to nobody in particular: ]

...That's a fucking fish.

[ Given the context, she might mean that literally. Only one way to find out. ]

C | BRUISED & BLOODY / SHUTEN TERRITORY ARENA

[ She'd been beating up people for free in bars this whole time, so it seemed only practical to at least get paid for that shit. The booze and cigarettes don't pay for themselves — and gods forbid that Andy hold a regular nine-to-five. She'd rather have her bones broken. Besides, she makes for a good underdog bet. Compared to some of the monstrous yokai that have stood opposite her in the ring, Andy looks decidedly ordinary. A woman who is neither particularly tall or strong. Nothing to betray the centuries she's spent mastering different ways of using her body to cause others pain. Except maybe that certain look in her eye. Something sharp. Something a little mean.

On one of the nights that she fights, she might find herself facing off against another Lost Soul in her next match. Or maybe afterward, with her left arm hanging loosely from its socket, she might be looking for someone to lend her hand — hopefully someone who isn't too squeamish to shove a shoulder back in. Otherwise, after the fighting is done, she makes a habit of smoking a cigarette right outside the arena, usually more interested in indulging that bad habit than patching herself up. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Too true. [ The offering is taken and inhaled, a longer drag held in for three seconds. It's released through a half-whistle funnel, tapped against his finger before offered back. ] But giving a shit *is* the point. You have to care about something - someone - in this world.

[ Even if it's one person or a hundred people, who are they without caring for each other? Surely all the apes duking it out for money on the ball have other apes they love. Love is at the center of it all. ]

[ She’s quiet for a long moment, something rueful in her expression as she considers him. At length, she reaches out for the cigarette, absently tucking her knees to her chest as she takes another drag. Smoke wisps around her words when she finally murmurs in reply: ]

Even if it hurts?

[ PAIN THRESHOLD - *Because* it hurts. ]

Especially when it hurts. That's how you know it meant something.

[ People don't get hurt over things they have no attachment to. They hurt when something they love, something they believe in, is shattered. Broken into one piece or a million and the effort it takes to reform it dictates the count. You only love something as much as you're willing to let it cause you pain. ]

[ It always hurts. And it hurts so much for so long. A fucking chasm inside her that just seems to grow and grow and grow as the centuries go by. But he's right — he's right, or they're both the same kind of stupid, because love is the only thing that's ever mattered. The only thing that's ever made living bearable. Even the tender agony of it — the grief — that was better than the dull emptiness she felt when she was alone.

The little ache he inspires in her chest is a reminder. ]

Is that romance? Or just masochism? [ Wry and quiet, as she finally offers their dwindling cigarette back to Harry: ] I'm not sure I can tell the fucking difference anymore.

Me neither.

[ He loved, once. He was also loved in return. Now she hates him - no, worse than that, she thinks *nothing* of him. All they are is electric waves transferred through radio towers into the other end of a receiver. She's a whole world away through the Pale. Now they are even farther.

The last bit of the cigarette is held between his fingers, but he has suddenly lost interest in finishing it. His eyes then glance further down and it dawns on him that his dick is limp again. Stellar. ]

Fuck. Think we should just call it a night.

Yeah?

[ It's almost a question, but mostly agreement. There's something sad and weary that's settled into her bones that has nothing to do with the day's fighting or fucking. It's familiar. She doesn't bother resisting it. Instead, she reaches out to gently take the stub of their shared cigarette from Harry, leaning away to smother it in the ashtray on the nightstand. Then, she slowly settles back onto the creaky motel bed, stretching her legs out and glancing Harry's way before lightly patting her thigh in an invitation more platonic than the one she gave him in the alley. An offer, if he likes — a safe place to rest that troubled head while they still have the room. ]

[ EMPATHY - Two beasts drained of their will to do anything but rest in each others arms. She's seeking comfort too.

She is warm, he thinks as he rests his head across her lap. When did he even shift down to meet this spot? Time is lost to him when he is exhausted in mind, body, and soul most of all. How does a man live without the comfort of another to help shoulder all the weight of the world? No one can live like this. Alone, abandoned, apart. There is a white mourning in his dreams and he every day he is getting closer to seeing its true form.

INLAND EMPIRE - It will be the end of you. Just as it was before.

It keeps him from closing his eyes. ]

Have you ever been in love, Andy?

[ Her hand, which had been cruel before, is gentle now, absently reached out toward him to brush the hair back from his forehead. She makes a quiet noise of acknowledgment in response to his question, but the answer is too heavy to come right away. It sits in her chest a few moments, weighing there before she finally responds, low and rueful: ]

Nobody becomes as tired and wretched as me without being in love.

[ But there’s a small, sad little smile on her face as she says it. Like maybe she wishes she had the good sense to regret that more than she does. ]

I’ve loved more than was probably good for me. Recklessly. Even desperately. Until I thought it might be the thing that finally killed me. [ With a quiet wryness: ] That sound familiar to you, Harry?

[ He lets out a humourless breath of a laugh. All too familiar. ]

I think in my case it *did* kill me. And then I came back.

[ The world wasn't done with him yet. Maybe that was the case? Or some innate instinct in all creatures to live, no matter the adversity. It isn't lost on him that he woke up brand new to the world from a suicide attempt. Maybe it was worth it though, all to feel the gentle stroke of her fingers brushing his hair. Maybe Lely thought that too when Klaasje did it for him. ]

Careful, Andy. You're stroking the hair of a dead man.

[ Maybe she would have died too, if she were capable. There were times when she had tried - when she’d fought her immortal flesh to be released from all the despair and all the longing. She’d almost managed it not along ago, when she showed up here and defiantly held a gun to her own head. Even now, she’s not sure what would have happened, if Kim Kitsuragi hadn’t been there to stop her. If he hadn’t put his hand gently on her shoulder and called her by her real name.

Those thoughts make her heart ache. For herself. For the ones she loved and lost. For the dead man laying his head in her lap. ]

Died of a broken heart, did you?

[ It’s almost tender, the way she says that. Almost loving. And sad, too. The kind of sad that comes too naturally, like it’s been there the whole time. ]

Love did me in.

[ His eyes start to sag as he mutters it, hateful body never doing what he wants. He would much rather stay awake, keep talking to Andy in the nude like they came out of the void and into being together. Nothing sexual about it at all, which is bewildering to imagine but it's true. He just likes chatting with her in this sad little motel. Being here, being with her, is enough for him. ]

[ She likes it too. More than she should. Maybe even more than she liked sitting on his face. But that's the nature of lonely people, isn't it? And some part of her is always hurting from loneliness. Always.

Though maybe it hurts a little less now.

Her answer is a soft, sympathetic noise — a quiet hum, low in her throat and barely audible at all. Words don't seem necessary, and the man looks tired. She wouldn't mind just letting him sleep like this, head in her lap, her fingers idly brushing through his hair. There's worse ways to pass the time. ]

[OPEN] only god can see what i've become.

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