#Riddles of the Tide|Billy Manderly

[brooklynislandgirl]

╰(*´︶`*)╯: Do they appreciate hugs? Would they prefer to give hugs or receive hugs? What kind of hugs do they like to receive and/or give?

Body and Soul || Accepting {{ @nolegacies for reasons}}

Boy looms. Even taller than Mountain ~which is impressive in and of itself~ there seems a sort of disconnect with the long, scrawny limbs. His shoulders are nearly perpetually hunched. When he walks he sways. And when he and Girl are in the same room? They gravitate toward each other. Pulled by invisible forces into one another's orbits never more than the span of two arms away. Most of the time it's not even that. There are triggers, of course. Right now it was one of the stock boys dropping a box in the storeroom, but the echo is a loud and sharp rapport. Boy and Girl, sitting by the fire and communicating silently as they do with the occasional flutter of fingers, head shakes and nods, or simply long stares the other seems to understand perfectly, perhaps not unlike Ron and his twin in their earliest youth. Whatever it is they were about is shattered in an instant and the reaction is born of terror, pure and simple. Boy shifts his arms and legs around to encompass the sylph that is Girl, drawing her into his chest. Her arms come up to wrap around his neck, hands spreading around his head to ward off whatever may come. In any other circumstance they could be taken for young lovers caught in the throes of a blisteringly passionate embrace. To anyone who did not hear the Boy's whimper. To anyone who could not see the shaking of their bodies in full tremble. Who did not see the subtle flash of colour that was too quick to even describe as Girl shifted over him. Ron isn't just anyone. He's seen the way Girl tends to hug one of the dogs when both are comfortable with such a thing. How Boy wends himself around her from behind and she leans into his warmth and stature. She hesitates to take whatever little treat Ron puts on the bar for her if his hand is too close. How she tends to pull herself tightly together whenever it seems she might make contact with anyone else. When nothing terrible follows the sound except for a quick call of apology, it still takes a few moments before the two young mutants manage to quell their fear enough to untangle from one another. She flashes an accusatory gaze toward the kitchen door as they pick up as silently as they'd settled. Hand in hand, they edge their way toward the stair that will take them up to the small room Ron's afforded them. The only thing spoken is that she pauses and brings her fist up to her chest making a clockwise circular motion. I'm sorry.

~*~

Girl does not really enjoy physical contact with other human beings. She and Boy have been together for so long, they are so comfortable with each other that any touch shared between them is part of their raising, part of their incredible bond, and when seen…everything is tender. Even when they are in disagreement which is in and of itself rare, he might coil his fingers around her wrist, or put a hand under her chin to lift it but there is no violence between them. If pressed to answer, she would prefer to be the one initiating a hug. It would be stilted and brief but it would be of her own choosing. She does not speak of her aversion but Ron at least has an inkling as to why. Boy knows. Boy keeps her secrets.

[brooklynislandgirl]

@ronmanmob {{from here because tumblr.}} {also tagging @nolegacies for reasons™}

Her wants are simple. Moreso, they are taken for granted daily by the average person; a roof overhead, something however small or uncomplicated in her belly, warmth against the cold she feels so keenly as there is little of her to act as a bulwark. Safety. Boy. Ron. The dogs. Those last ones all seem wound together by the fragile threads of hope and much as she might wish otherwise, she knows they cannot last long. Eventually, she and Boy will have to move on because if they remain then they will call trouble on the one person they've met willing to help them and that is something she cannot do. Ron does not deserve to bear the brunt of the violence normal people find themselves capable of enacting. And certainly not on their behalf. She cannot read minds though sometimes it would be ever so much easier if she could. But she can read body language. The very aura that surrounds him and she can see he's pulled somewhere dark, some place that doesn't make him very happy even if it's only in bits and shadows in his head. She can't help but remember the last time she'd seen this sort of look, and she's taken back to the night when Boy was hurt. When Ron made sure that particular man could never hurt Boy or anyone like him ever again. She remembers what she and Boy did about it, how they'd spent the night under the bridge huddle up together with their shared can of peaches and some damp crackers that they'd saved. She half shakes herself from her thoughts. Too close to the surface to think about right now with any sort of clarity. Ron would understand if she told him that but as always, she is soundless when she pours herself out of her seat. She watches him as she always does. Drinking in every minute movement, every breath, every word spoken. Hyper-vigilance that cannot be helped as it has soaked into her psyche. She will never not be that way. She doesn't see him as a direct threat though. If she did, she'd never flit to his side like a little moth. Small hands and feet stretching slightly toward the fed warmth as she plops down on her back-side. As she watches him retreat into the deeper recesses of the Trader, she lets her gaze drop to the now bright and warm flames. The dance between colours and sparks provides her a sort of blank canvas to let her thoughts wander once more. Treacherously her currents drag her back to where she was perched at the bar. The question of where they could go once they had to leave, to save Ron and Mountain and the people here that were so kind to them. She has heard whispers of a great man, tall as trees and steel-eyed, with long silver hair and an unbreakable will. He is one of them and does not tolerate the daily abuses heaped upon mutant kind. This man is a defender, a leader. Sometimes he has been accused of great harm but is this not a war? Are most people not content to see mutants at best shipped off to camps, or slaughtered in the streets? To be used in experiments, like Boy and her? Ron seems to understand what it is like to be different though she cannot quite put her finger on why or how. She only knows that he cares about them and has put himself on the line to protect them. Would the silver-man see Ron the way she does, the way Boy does, if he had to find some place to run to? And how would they find the silver-man. Would he welcome Ron as a friend? If the tides turned, would Ron and Mountain and the Nice Older Lady and the rest be spared? What if Silver-Mane is just a story? Someone made up to put a face on all mutants and to gather all the hate and fear in one place? What if there's no place to go? What happens then?

There are so many questions she has no answers to, and the stream of fear and anxiety slip from the corners of her eyes, tremble through her limbs as she wraps her arms around her knees while drawing them up tightly to her chest.

She is aware of his presence before she sees Ron reappear physically. He is careful to never startle Boy and herself as often as he can. He doesn't like being sneaked up on either. There has been a time or two where she has been so sure Ron is one of their kind, but she cannot sense in him the thing that sets mutants apart from humankind. She does sometimes think that maybe he'd speak to animals, if he could.

She reached out for the sandwich, the most substantial thing offered to her, and despite every urge she had to rip into it and shove as much into her mouth as she could ~which itself fought with the need to save half or more for Boy~ and for a few moments, she stared up at Ron with big wide green eyes set in her thin, hollow face. She makes a few small gestures, one that communicated her deepest appreciation, willowy thanks. Next the slow fingers tear a bit of sandwich off the end and put the piece into her mouth. As she chews slowly, she becomes animated once more. Fluttering fingertips anchored by heavier gestures that involve hand and arm. She asks why he cares so much, and why he helps the way he does. What is he getting out of it? Underlying the question is the distinct impression she has that nothing ever comes freely.

[brooklynislandgirl]

@ronmanmob    {{xx}} {{tagging @nolegacies for reasons}}

Girl, in all likelihood, is a magpie. Bright colours and shiny ink seems to garner a lot of attention the way patrons do not. Paper does not send her fleeing up the stairs or out the back door not to be seen for a week. Her world is filled with three people ~Boy, Mr Kray, Mountain-That-Talks~ and innumerable dogs. The little grey who had been her companion has settled in with the other dogs and is now part of the pack. She doesn't belong to Girl, really, any more but it's fair to say Ron Kray is a far better caretaker than Girl could be. Case in point, sharing his fish and chips with her even if she only steals little pieces, the ones he sets aside. Perhaps its the anxiousness of Boy being out because he's needing the kind of water he cannot get within the safety of the pub. Or maybe it might just be that she lives off air and sunlight not unlike the plants Ron tends. Sometimes they do well with feeding but it isn't a necessary thing. Sitting at his table she noticed the noticed the pretty paper. A contrast to the usual black-and-white with the words printed on them kind. She'd been leery when he picked up the pens and shook her head. He coaxed her into copying the things he wrote. She could see the patterns even if they were meaningless. Ron Kray doesn't make fun of her inability to do more than that. It also goes to show she has not had many experiences with toys. How to play games. The concept is easier to understand. Her side of the game is convoluted, turns taking forever to convey her meaning, her answers often in shrugs and to make up for it she's far quicker and more elaborate in asking him questions. When he says he has two, she looks up from the paper on the ends of her fingers and carefully pulls the fortune maker from them as if they are the most precious resource in the world. His face reminds her of the moon, it doesn't hold a lot of little expressions but changes in phases. She can't quite follow him when he goes through the emptiness of the hidden one, when all there are is stars, sometimes clouds. The only real difference is she's not afraid of the vastness of him. It's a different sort than the one she's used to. There's nothing clinical. There's nothing cruel or distant or a hundred other things she could never express. She reaches out while he debates himself internally and takes one of the crisps off the plate and then dips it into the ketchup she dolloped on a napkin so it wouldn't touch anything else. She swallows guiltily when he speaks again. Maybe that's why he offers her something just a teensy bit more substantial. She likese the ones with the chocolate between two cookie parts. She takes one and sets it neatly beside her own cup of mostly milk-coffee. She watches his hands now instead of his face, bare autumn branches that sway with his words. The question scares her but she doesn't flinch away, though maybe she does squirm a little bit in her chair. Makes it look like she's only readjusting her legs for comfort. She breathes a heavy sigh between her lips, blowing a stray lock of hair out of her face. It is easier to answer the second question first. She mimics the same word, Girl with more emphasis, then herself. She is, yes, a girl. All the constituent parts. She thinks she might have had a name once. Sometimes she dreams of a dark haired woman whose features are indistinct. Like a reflection in a fogged-up window. But sometimes she smiles and holds Girl close and sings her songs she never remembers when she wakes up. She swipes at the side of her nose with her knuckle. Not conveying anything beyond wiping at the dampness from her eyes. She does then proceed with signs and pantomime that at the Place where the White Coats imprisoned them, there was never a use for names. Only Boy and Girl or worse. Numbers.

She indicates herself and then very slowly she taps on the table top. Each series of thumps is separated by a quick slash of her flattened hand.

9. 6. 8. 1. 5. 2. 0. 0. 4. 2. 8. 0. 6.

That sequence, she tells him, is what she was called in the Place.

Female subject 9681520042806.

Girl. She tries to tell Ron Kray that Boy isn't much different. Male subject HS620051310. She half-smiles but there's something utterly withdrawn, sad about it at the edges. The next part takes far too long. At the Place, all the Girls and all the Boys ~known only by their numbers~ were constantly watched by the White Coats. Constantly poked and prodded and examined. Eventually, the ones who showed nothing special were taken away and never seen again. The ones who did have something special were tested and trained and made to do horrible things that she refuses to talk about. But more often than not, she ~Girl~ remembers the screaming. The crying. The utter misery that shrouded the Place thicker than the fog, the cold grey sea that lapped at the rocky shore. When they ~the girls and the boys~ were caught speaking together even in the softest of whispers, the entire group would be punished for it. Only the White Coats were allowed to speak unless absolutely necessary. Eventually, she and Boy were chosen, as two of the oldest, to be leaders. They were given permission to speak to the younger ones. After that, she and Boy were often put together in the same room. They were encouraged to... ...her hands fall silent. Pair-bonded, the White Coats had called them. She would hold Boy when he was scared and sometimes sang to him the fragments of music from her dreams. She would save him the lion's share of the food. He would braid her hair for her and soothe the ache with his large warm hands when they pushed her too far. Eventually she and Boy talked of escaping with the younger children. To get as far away as they could and disappear. She makes a small sound in the back of her throat as those far-too recent memories come flooding back. What happened to the younger ones. Some were recaptured, but others... She and Boy were the only ones who had made it this far. And maybe only because of Mr Kray's help. Her hands rise again and the answer is simple.

It got scared away, and Girl hasn't found it yet.

[brooklynislandgirl]

👌🛌 [ homeless ]

Ain’t Exactly like Barry White || Not Currently Accepting

She knows better than to stop on a crowded street in the middle of the day, especially when they have ill-gotten gains in their backpacks, and her little dog on a rope leash. But that might be the one blessing of not being part of society, of becoming personless when you don’t have a home. People’s eyes tend to slide right off you if you don’t ask for spare change, or to ‘borrow’ a cigarette you have no intention or ability to repay, or any of a dozen other seeds of guilt to sow up in their consciences. So as they pass the big picture window with all the different television screens on display and the outside speaker plays the music from the moving pictures, she can’t help but stop. Press the hand he’s not holding to the glass, to feel the vibrations. The boy on the screen with the short wet blonde hair coloured pink looks nothing like Billy, and she’s never heard him sing. But if he did? She bets they would sound the same, maybe. She likes the boy who strokes the guitar. Her Boy gives her as much time as his patience allows before he’s tugging on her wrist and ducking his head. There’s a few watchdogs that are spread through the crowd. They might have spotted Boy and her yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Watchdogs who ask too many questions that can’t be answered, watchdogs who could to a man work for Them. And find the wrong one, then back they go to the Place. So she doesn’t fight it. She scoops up the little grey pup and carries her like a baby as she tries to keep up with Her Boy’s longer legged stride. They double and triple back a time or two and it’s hours before they reach their space under the bridge. They store what they can in the ever increasing makeshift shelter. Her Boy keeps out the damp and she gathers things that will burn for their little fire. She feeds the pup food from a pouch, tender for her still growing teeth, and the pup is grateful, gobbling it up as quick as she can. Her Boy splits the still warm fried fish into shares, and she makes sure he gets the larger portion by slipping a couple pieces on his side of the container, or shoving over the larger chips, but only when he isn’t looking. He worries about her but he needs more than she does. Much later, when they try to sleep she drowns out the traffic and other night sounds in the city by recalling the song. It pairs with the rain falling beyond the bridge’s two open sides. She snuggles closer to Her Boy and feels his arms curl around her. She settles her backside into the basket of his hips and she feels him stir against her. It isn’t the first time that that has happened. She knows what is supposed to come of it, how at the Place they would be put in a room with the strange windows. How They had hoped to watch nature take its course, but Her Boy never would. But as the rain and the song in her head plays on, she wonders if it would be so bad. Her Boy is beautiful. He is finely made. As she tries to make herself sleep, she mouths the words to the song. I give this part of me for you... Sand rains down and here I sit... Holding rare flowers...   

[brooklynislandgirl]

@ronmanmob   {xx}

The girl can turn herself into a ghost.

At least that's what she ardently believes when the car speeds along the lane taking the passengers past the quiet edifice of the pub. The tyres splash through the puddles welled within the pits of the cobbled street. It doesn't slow nor does it stop. It only leaves a lingering of lights that fade quickly from view even before the sound of its engine passes away. And the girl-who-is-a-ghost allows herself to take a breath previously unneeded when she wasn't alive. That breath fogs the pane of glass before her. She traces designs in the condensation that hold no meaning beyond her own imaginings with a single fingertip. She almost wears the heavy curtain as a cloak.

Far above Boy sleeps nestled in the borrowed quilts on a bed just a touch to narrow to fit them both even though they made it work. He dreams his dreams of water as he always does, a little less fitfully for the rain that had drizzled down starting when they had come here to take umbrage from the elements. She thinks Mr Kray took pity on them, bedraggled as they were. They asked for nothing but a small space within which to spend the night out of the freezing damp and they hardly asked that at all. Rumour-quick movements of stiff and dirty hands despite having had a bath. Which in turned pulled few, stuttered words from Boy's mouth, his eyes never meeting Mr Kray's. It was a modern miracle too or a trick of light or some unspent magic that bent all six feet, six inches of him down smaller than Girl herself. Neither of them posed much of a threat, especially when Boy still carried most of the signs of his abuse.

She hadn't meant to impose. To require another favour but she didn't like the sound in Boy's breathing.

Just as she didn't like the word she hears muttered across the pub's space that stiffens her into a human shaped brick. Wide eyes, dark and hollow ~the worst kind of haunted~ turn to meet Ron's visage. Such a solemn little face that nods when he apologises. Fingers twist in the still damp shift she wears, her clothes spread out upstairs in order to dry out. Bare feet that twist toward one another until the biggest toes of each foot practically touch. Until she puts on slowly in front of the other, summoned by the prospect of something warm in her belly.

Barely dressed as she is, most of her is exposed to that imposing black gaze of his. Without the layers of the same shabby clothes he's seen her wearing every time she is so much smaller. All skin pulled tight against bones no sturdier than a bird's, likely just as hollow. Old bruises still healing. Scars that are the bite of rope and other, worse things littered across her.

She looks him in the face again before scrambling to lift herself up onto one stool as obedient as Claude or Topper or any of the other pups. A flat hand touches her lips then falls away to point at him. A little 'thank you'. A moment the morsel of chocolate is broken into a precise pair of halves. One piece finds a home in her mouth, the other is painstakingly set aside for the Boy.

With the speed of glaciers she ekes out a small testament in pantomime. First an apology for having frightened him. Second an explanation of sorts to say she hadn't been able to sleep well. Third, affirmation that her enormous, lanky shadow was still asleep for now, along with her little grey pup.

The last one is...complicated. A symphony of hesitance wherein she brushes one of his giant and mostly gentle paws, a question of what has him keeping hours with ghosts.

[brooklynislandgirl]

The Devil’s Backbone  @nolegacies, @ronmanmob  {{ XX }}

He take Claude. There is no invitation for her but at the same time she feels obligated to shadow him. At a reasonable distance to afford the man who has done so much to help her a little bit of privacy. But there are things and people in the night that he might not be so easily aware of, some ill-intentioned mongers of pain. The kind that snatch people off the street no matter how quiet it might be. The kind that.... but he isn’t, is he? She was sure she’d know by now of Ron Kray was her kind. The fear remains though because it’s easy to see the reverse side of the coin; in which her kind take their vengeance on anyone not like them. It is happening more and more of late. Regardless, she feels this is right. This is proper. Especially now, after midnight, when the day is new, taking it’s first breath after being birthed. He wanders without clear direction, with no purpose she could fathom beyond the want to stretch his legs or clear his head, maybe a touch of both. Sometimes his mind is louder than his pub and she doesn’t blame him for wanting to tire the voices out. Sometimes she wonders if that’s where hers went; into his head to hide amongst all of the others. Or if she left it back at the facility, dug from her by the hoarse screaming, and put in a jar. Wonders if she’ll find it again some day, if it will still recognise her as its home.

She almost risks running into him when he stops short at the mouth of an alley, cutting into her thoughts. She tilts her head into the dark and listens. She does not like what she hears and she’s not so very different from Claude. Her hackles rise, and she bears her teeth. Her heart slams against her rib cage when she catches snippets of the things said, of the feet and fists that are not Ron’s.

It looks like a slow pantomime when Claude’s growl rises with Ron’s fists. The sheer force and power of a boxing man with thick musculature. The others go running, terrified by what they see. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. In their cowardice they shout things in their retreat that she commits to memory; words and faces and scents.

When she turns the corner though, she stops short. Hands ready to help tear a man apart become soft again, and gentle. It is her boy, her friend, her fellow escape that was the recipient of hate. Of pain and of bruising and she doubly promises in her silent way that the rest won’t survive the week. But for now... She kneels down beside him. Makes little guttural utterances in place of words. She nuzzles him until his hands come away from protecting his head, his neck. Helps him into a sitting position while Ron clubs the ringleader into pulp. Into paste. She will not look at her porridge the same way again.

She opens herself up just a little. Lets the warmth of her spill into Billy’s bones. Lets him siphon off enough of her energy so that he can knit together the broken ones, to seal up the cuts. They cannot stay here, he has to come away with him. She wishes so hard that he could understand her.

Her mind races. They can not leave the now cooling meat on the ground. Nor the splintering make-shift bat. They can not allow her boy to stay on the streets bloody as Ron is. She can not let the police come and take either of them away. She can not allow herself to be caught either. She makes a few signs at her boy’s direction, ones he would understand. River. Hungry. Throw away. Help.  For all that she wants to take care of it herself, she is but small.

When he is himself again, is Ron, she tugs at his loosened shirt tail, then cringes away in case the rage is still blinding him. She makes gestures of thanks. Makes signs that he should go back to the pub. That he shouldn’t be here. That they will...clean up the mess. They are better at it than he might think. Her eyes dart from the Black to the Blue.  Surely they know what must be done. She relies on her boy to speak for her.