#still a bit rusty and meh with the muse so I apologize of this sucks but I'm trying <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[demcnsinmymind]

"Okay" he breathes, not at all sure if she actually means it or if she's just saying that to placate him. The truth is that he cannot quite bring himself to really figure it out right now as he's desperate for any sort of normalcy, any opposite of all that violence. I'm fine, she says. Not dead at least like all the others. Not physically harmed by the looks of it. He'll take it.

Still, he laughs once when she tells him it's not his fault. He guesses that in a way, it wasn't. He didn't pull that trigger, isn't part of that fucking cult, just wants to get the hell away from it all. Still. What a funny thing to say.

"Maybe not the fault, but the reason" he mutters under his breath, shaking his head. "Not sure if that makes it better or worse" he goes on. At last, she's talking more and more again, giving at least some credibility to the fact that she's not utterly wrecked by all this. Can still talk, even makes a lot of sense with it, too.

"I guess you're right" Lance acknowledges, shooting another look outside. At all this fucking desert. Everywhere. Not a drop of water in sight.

"Truck stops...he perks up, looking back at her at last. It's there already. All over again, that thought, that impression that even after all this time, likes to pop up first within his mind. He tries his best not to think it, to ignore it, but the more he does, the more it makes his hitchhiker perk right back up again, too. More than eager to speak it out for him. To make sure that he doesn't ignore the thought, his true self, his true colors.

Useful little thing, isn't she. Like she was made for helping you get back home.

Just for a little moment, he can't help but wonder. Past all the frustration and rage. Lance looks at her in discrete silence. Trying to convince himself that it's fucking ridiculous, but hey, so is the rest of all of this, isn't it? Why stop there. Just what was it exactly, that got them to talk in the first place? And what is it that is keeping her around? Almost eager to be made use of, it seems?

"They probably have cameras though, right? Lot of goods and shady people moving through every day... Fuck. I hope we're nowhere near a border..." As if on cue, he can see a sign in the distance, pointing out the next gas station, with an additional note on when the next truck stop can be expected after. A while, but not too far.

"Beats driving into a town with a cracked windshield and while covered in blood. One of those it is then. Good call" he settles on it at last, sighing when she gives him even more reassurances.

"I know"he says with a sigh, only half meaning it though. He knows that he'll be okay and that he'll figure something out. Always has, always will be. It's her he's more worried about in all of this, and even though he tries to keep that fact hidden from the expression on his face, it's not quite working. Still too shaken from it all, rusty on the acting. Either way, he forces himself to give her a little smile. Says nothing about the rest, leaves it at that. I know.

If there's a surefire way to jolt her out of her stupor, he's found it. The windshield cracks and Miriam flinches. Violently. Like a hare in its burrow, she flattens herself against the backrest of her seat. Wide eyes stare at the split glass. She follows the trajectory of the crack, futilely looking for the impact mark. Part-time shaman that she is, her mind snaps back to the way Matt's hand tore apart in the same way. Suddenly, from inside itself. She compares the physics of it, the arch of the cut. Isn't it the same pattern, the same outward spiral?

The pressure of a presence, of unactualized potential, tightens around her until her ears pop. She feels it on her skin, on some layer just beneath it, the mauve undergarment of her muscles. It radiates from Sean in erratic waves. How had she never noticed it before? Now it is giving her a skull-splitting headache.

He rambles about some plan, some destination. He has neither. Miriam watches him fumble. Yes, God will move in and out of you and give you not a single answer for it. She knows. Something monumental happens and unhinges your life, your very self, and all you can do is stagger through the aftermath, crying for another brush with ecstasy. Sean is staggered, even though it wasn't his hands that held the gun.

He suddenly becomes aware of her in a new way, a bodily way. Like she's been only a shadow until now, the image of a girl. Now he realizes the blood is real. She shrinks beneath its weight, diminished by the feeling of it drying on her skin. He reaches out, then doesn't. She watches his hand flinch towards her and then away. Then there come the apologies again. It's novel, really. No man has ever apologized for making her hold a gun before.

"No, I think I'm fine." She whispers back to him. Lie of the century, but there is nothing more to say. She isn't dead. That's the same as fine. Even if he can't follow through, she believes his concern is real. It softens her. It makes her ache in some place just below her heart. She draws a shuddering breath and scrubs some blood off her cheek with her fingernails. It itches. "It's okay. I promise. I know you didn't mean to. It's not your fault. I know it's not." This feels better, like some semblance of control.

"We won't find a creek deep enough for me to wash myself. And I don't know where we are, if there's any rivers here at all. But- But there's truck stops. Big ones, with showers and all. I used to hide out there a lot. They're not too busy, and we can get a different car." Funny, how quickly the plan assembles in her mind. Like she's just been waiting for this development. No, that can't be.

He can't reach out to her without feeling his fingertips singe off, but she is not so impaired. Miriam's skittish fingers creep over to him, brush against his shoulder. Just for the warmth of it, she promises. Just because no one else is going to touch her now. She is unbearable.

"It'll be okay, Sean, I promise. We can figure something out. We can... We can go somewhere else, maybe."