jigokulogs | [SEMI-CLOSED] i am my mother's savage daughter.

[the medicine is bitter, smells of the herbs that form its main base. but it'll soothe the stomach and the head, make light less of a pain, slowly help ease things back to baseline. the water is cool, quenching, and when she's done, Emily sets the glass and now empty vial aside. she'll handle those later.]

I know. It's my choice.

[if she spoke of it as a duty, as the calling it is, it would seem mere obligation. she chooses to answer it. chooses to dig in herself again, back to that wellspring of steady hands and patience. she chose to walk in this place and start work here.]

Now go into the bathroom and remove your clothes before I do that for you too.

[ There’s a dull, distant self-loathing she feels for even letting her pain be so obvious that someone else might notice. After centuries of this same shit, she should be used to the loss by now. It always goes like this. There’s never enough time. It shouldn’t hurt so much, so keenly. But somehow it always hurts like the first time.

And it’s too late to take it back. Emily’s seen her clearly, in all her ugly, wretched glory. She’s weak, and they both know it now. Only some brittle remnant of pride makes her keep insisting that she’s okay. There’s a moment where it almost seems like her battered ego will rise to argue - her lips purse at Emily for a second, her eyebrows pinching together - but the moment passes. The argument stays stuck in the back of her throat, bitter like the medicine.

Instead, she turns away, letting the blankets drop to the floor in a heap. She starts undressing as she trudges towards the bathroom, tugging her clothes off in slow motions until there’s nothing left but the tattooed peonies across her shoulders and something hanging from a simple chain around her neck - a ring, with a red stone too flamboyant to have been chosen by Andy herself, even though she wears it close to her heart.

When she finally speaks again, it’s a mutter that gets half-drowned out by the sound of the running water: ]

Aren’t you fucking tired of this? Always cleaning up everyone else’s mess.

[she runs the water, warm but not hot, and uses the shower head to let it course over Andy's body. there is nothing untoward in this, nor any judgement - just careful passes of soap and water. and if she cannot wash the grief away from her, she can at least ease things. hands that do not err where they want to go, though they are not delicate from the years of work she's taken on. the peonies shine bright through the water, and every touch, all of it seems to say I've got you. she's safe to be vulnerable, protected behind Emily's hands, behind a locked door and an apartment that will not be as miserable outside as Andy is inside. weakness here will not have someone's teeth in your throat, but will be offered warmth, strength.

tears, if they need to fall, can do so without a word spoken.

she hadn't let Andy do this much for her. had let herself be held for a while, but then figured out how to make her excuses when she was embarrassed enough to stop. hating the perception, everything she said - and it is why she says nothing now, and lets Andy choose her words. her pride, ruined as it is, should be allowed this kindness as it must rebuild itself.

so when Emily speaks, it's as quiet as Andy has been.]

Why would I be tired? You're my friend.

[and their pain was worth attending to. she cannot mend it like she would a physical wound, but she can support them, be the fixed point to return to. that is what she can be, so she is. it's simple.]

[ Why? Because Andy is fucking tired of dealing with herself. She'd crawl out of her own damn skin if she could, just to escape the wretchedness of existing. Maybe even she'd consider more drastic measures, if there weren't still too many things to live for. It wouldn't be the first time. Seven thousand years is too long to live without thinking of ending things, now and then. It might even stick, now that she's mortal. But she has her people. Her terrible cat. Her debt to the Enma. Reasons to keep on, even if it seems like it might be easier not to. Even if she sometimes resents having those reasons.

She's exhausted. Bone fucking weary. ]

This is all you do. Day in and day out. Taking care of other people like this. [ Her voice is a murmur, as if only half-spoken to Emily at all. ] And we're all chronically fucked up, so you always have to keep doing it. It's fucking Sisyphean.

[ But she's not ungrateful, is she? It's just that she feels guilty. Guilty that Emily has to see her like this. Guilty that it does help, somehow — even just feeling the water on her skin, washing off the staleness of her depression. The thick curtain of her hair clings to her body, plastered to her face and her throat as she stands there, her eyes fixed on her own feet, watching the rivulets of water run between them. ]

I'm the same fucking way. I keep doing the same futile shit. Over and over and over.

[shampoo in her hands, she begins washing Andy's hair, hands slow, fingertips massaging the scalp. shhh. shhh. it's okay, isn't it? if Andy is looking in a mirror, Emily will bring it closer, so she won't darken the image there. it's the life she chose. it's the duty she's bound to. it will never match to the blood she had to clean up, seemingly endless.

Andy cannot know. no one can. not even the people she loves so dearly. they know her crime, but not how it gnaws at her soul so constantly. and it makes her wonder, how honest all of this is. is this her heart, or her compulsion? she'd like to think it comes from somewhere honest, somewhere deeper, because...]

...I always wanted to be a doctor. Even when I was young, even when I couldn't bring all my books with me every time we moved. I said I'd study hard, and I'd be able to help anyone that needed it - they wouldn't have to suffer, as long as I could intervene. So I went and did it. I fought my way through school on my academics, did everything right, gave up what wasn't needed and swore that oath, promised my life. Because it was a dream, because it's what never wavered. It was that certain wanting, the fact that I had something to give.

I do what I do because I still have more to give. Because I want to, Andy.

[because she has to. because there is nothing else, because if you made her be still she'd have no choice but to weep. because in what she gives to others, there is fulfillment, joy, peace. there is no room for selfish behavior. she wants this.]

Do you do what you do because you want to?

Edited 2022-09-11 08:46 (UTC)

[ Andy had spent the last few days feeling untethered from her own body, as if the enormity of her grief was so great that there wasn't room inside that cage of flesh and bone for her actual being. She'd just laid there in bed, rotting and stale. It's harder to be so detached now — the running water is relentless against her back, and she can feel Emily's steady hands working the shampoo through her long hair. There's the sound of Emily's voice too. Familiar. Comforting. Even if some part of her resists being comforted, preferring instead to bleed.

The tender agony of loss might have been easier to bear than the guilt she feels, hearing Emily tell her she's here because she wants to be. Because she wants to help. Andy knows those long years of study have better uses than this. Washing her hair is a thankless task that's beneath a surgeon's hands. It's worse because she remembers — she knows that Emily is tired too. That there are days she stands on the edge of some terrible precipice, just barely keeping herself back from the edge of that darkness for the sake of the people around her. She can't decide if she's more grateful or ashamed that Emily's here for her now. ]

...It's not the same. [ What she does — it's selfish. A selfish bid for redemption. For things she did thousands of years ago before she knew better. Mistakes she made when she was young and powerful — when she thought she was invincible. People she couldn't save. And with all their secrets, she can't know how that makes them more the same than not. ] I'm not a good person. My motives aren't noble. I'm not like you.

[ She lifts one hand to her face, covering her eyes. ]

Every fucking thing I've done since I got here has been for me. And if it fucking hurts like hell now, that's my own goddamn fault.

[water pours over Andy's head to cleanse away the soap as Emily presses her tongue into the roof of her mouth to stop her replying. if there was nobility, it was tarnished and scratched, utterly ruined. brass instead of gold, to accumulate muck and grime and soot stains. to be nothing worth saving. I am not a good person either, she wants to scream, to hear it echo from the tile. but she does not. it's not about me.

and maybe something sears in her, to hear someone say everything they did was for their own self. a hot, painful streak of envy, that feels like acid across her chest. but she throws it away, so it can cover up that thing that once was her virtues, her nobility, where her bitterness seeps out and poisons the earth in a dark and lifeless brown.

Andy's hair is drenched from the shower, and Emily may be holding the showerhead with one hand, but she's possessed instead to reach out with her free hand, touch Andy. press a kiss to her cheek and whisper so fiercely:]

Grief is not a fault. Your love is not a fault.

[she would do anything to convince her of that.]

[ She knows that she's had the privilege of selfishness. Her whole life — even when she felt such crushing guilt, such despair for the things she regretted and the people she'd lost, she'd never truly been subjected to anyone's will but her own. That curse of hers — the immortality that hurt her so terribly — it also gave her power. The kind of power that rarely had to compromise. The only things that had ever really left her helpless were time, death, and love.

So now she suffers from self-inflicted wounds, languishing in her own misery while Emily again bears the burden of caretaker. She's aware of it. She has to be, after what they've been through — what they've put each other through. And she hates herself for it, selfish again as she uses Emily's martyrdom to indulge her self-loathing. It's easy to let herself sink into those dark thoughts, letting them feed into each other, twisting her grief into something worse —

But then Emily touches her. Presses her lips against her face. Whispers those words in her ear — and they fucking pierce right through her, each word like a burning hot knife, almost unbearable as they sear against the open wounds she's carried since the day she woke up without Nishitani beside her.

She can't fully believe those words. She can't accept them. Or the absolution they offer. There's been too many long centuries spent raging against the bittersweet agony of love and the enduring grief of loss — but it loosens something inside her. A little crack. Just enough that her feelings start to swell in her throat — ]

Fuck.

[ A single wretched curse. Andy suddenly stands, tearing herself away as if it's too painful to be seen like this. The woman makes for a pathetic picture, faintly trembling as she stands there with her back to Emily, one hand over her face to delay the moment that her tears betray her. ]

Andromache.

[it's thoughtless, that she turns off the shower, rises. reaches for her, draws her close, back to chest, heedless of water on her own clothes. it might as well be blood, for how little she cares. but she will not leave her cold, not leave her to weep and feel like she has to be alone. oh, it hurts. god knows she knows it hurts. it hurts and there is nothing to take out, to close up.

she will not tell. Emily never tells. there is enough room inside her to hold many, many more secrets. if this is one, she'll take it into all her days.

breathe. even though it's agony. breathe the way you would with a punctured lung, a severed cartoid, a limb left useless. breathe.]

[ She feels small and weak in Emily's arms, laid bare for her like this. If she wanted to, Emily could destroy her utterly in that moment — she has no defense, nothing left to protect herself with. She's tried so hard, grasping desperately at the last threads of her façade — but whatever remained is useless against the way Emily says her name. How she draws Andy's naked, trembling body against her own.

This is not the immortal queen. This is not the god of war. This is simply a woman, stripped down to her most fragile parts. And Emily — Emily holds those broken pieces so carefully, unafraid to cut herself on them.

It feels like an eternity before Andy finally moves — slowly lifting her arms to fold them over Emily's, her fingers gripping there as if Emily's embrace is the one anchor she has left in this world. Her voice is raw when she speaks, the words barely managing to tear themselves free from her throat: ]

...It hurts, Em. It hurts so much.

[Andy will feel rather than see the nod. she knows, she is here to say you are heard. holding her so close, that the warmth of her body might ward off any chill, that there is something real to lean against. she doesn't have to be a queen, a goddess, a warrior - she can be a woman who loves and hurts and wants to be enveloped in the same tenderness she gives to others.

gently, Emily presses a kiss to her hair, tucking her head in her shoulder, breathing steadily. it's okay. say and do what you need. scream and curse and break things, just let it occur for you. she'll still be here. she'd do anything for her, right now.]

[ Maybe it's dangerous, to make an unspoken offer like that to a creature both so volatile and so weak. Andy is flayed open, all her raw feelings exposed to the woman holding her, kissing her so gently — and it makes her greedy, hungry for what comfort she can get when every part of her aches with loss and grief. She's never claimed to be a good person. She's never said she wasn't selfish.

It's an act of both need and self-sabotage when she turns in Emily's arms, pushing forward to crush their mouths together, her hands fisting tightly in Emily's clothes. ]

[this is no tender kiss to let her down gently, this is a kiss that snatches the breath from her lungs, hot and insistent and laced with the pain that Andy feels. and Emily doesn't know what to do other than to kiss her back, as if that would offer something to ease it, if that will give her stability, if she needs it.

the fabric of her dress crumples easily under Andy's hands, keeping them together - Emily doesn't know what to do with her own, still holding on but not the most sure. holding, not grasping for. this is new territory for her.]

[ She's not using her head — not thinking — because if she was, she would know better than to do this. Before, there had always been an unspoken line between them that neither had ever crossed — but she's nothing more than pain and feeling now, guided by need and impulse when she backs Emily up against the nearest wall. Her body presses up flush against Emily's, the water clinging to her hair and her skin soaking through Emily's dress.

Her exhale into the space between their mouths is unsteady. ]

I need you.

[ It's a question. ]

Andy...

[don't say that to her. because her heart on reflex begins to bleed, because she needs her and that's enough to have her offer, to carve a space in herself and let Andy in. how can she tell her no, seeing that pain, wanting to relieve her, wanting things to be all right again?

she kisses her instead, trying to pour all she feels into it, hands tangling into dark hair. what can she do apart from weep for her? what can she do apart from give even more, to try and numb away that sorrow? what does she want - take it, if it helps.]

[SEMI-CLOSED] i am my mother's savage daughter.

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cw: brief mention of suicidal ideation

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