Richie "Bitch Baby Tears" Tozier (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summertimeblues) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
nysalogs2018-03-25 03:56 pm
summertimeblues) wrote in nysalogs2018-03-25 03:56 pm
(Open) Don't you dare say his name...
Who: Richie Tozier (summertimeblues) & you lucky guys
What: Dealing very poorly with torture, dying, and coming back to life. He didn't sign up to be Jesus
When: Mar. 25th-27th
Where: Olympia, Thesa Station, Flona Cove
Warning(s): Drug and alcohol use and abuse, mentions of gore/death/suicide, sad pod crying, icky feelings.
I: Thesa Station
[There's a relative quiet among the sleeping. It is, in effect, a graveyard. People are here to show their respects, to mourn and to yearn. Today though, wherever you might be, there's a serenade rattling the air between the glass chambers. A guitar thrum mimicked through slaps on the metal to support the rollicking vocals of Elvis Presley. Back from the dead and ready to slide and shake in those blue suede shoes.]
Spider Murphy played the tenor saxophone
Little Joe was blowin' on the slide trombone
The drummer boy from Illinois went crash, boom, bang
The whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang
Let's rock! Everybody let's rock!
[If you round the right corner, you won't find the King. But you'll find Richie Tozier, seated between in a row of about five pods: there's a handsome man in cowboy boots, a black man cut and battered and bandaged to bits, a thin mousy type with a jerry-rigged cast on his arm and rounded specs, a stunning woman whose red hair spills around her in a halo of curls, and a balding man who, even while sleeping, belies a unquantifiable charm and steadiness. He's having the time of his life with a half-finished gin bottle in one hand as the other busies itself playing drums and beats. He's pale, poorly slept if the purple punch bags under his eyes are any indication, and there's a still smoking cigarette butt laying its ash on the floor next to him. But he's seemingly in good spirits, high on the music.]
Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Ro—hey! Hey you! You know this next part, get in on it!
II: Friends in Low Places.
[The bars are that sweet shade of not-too-busy-not-too-slow. Richie slips in and out of the crowds with no difficulty and no recognition. He avoids Shades Darker (hasn't gone back to work yet), avoids places he knows. Sticking clean to the unfamiliar. This place wasn't home and even months later it was failing to pick up any kind of coziness to wilt back on.
But as determined as he is to stay solo and shrug into shadows, he can't help that rising sense of panic. Of emptiness. If he shuts his eyes too long he can hear those howling voices again. He's no man of god but those three days suspended in some ghastly in-between place have left him with doubts. There doesn't have to be a god for there to be a hell.
He doesn't want to keep marinating on it. Desperate and suddenly shaking in the hands, he moves to take a seat at the bar. Someone's just settled in and made an order. Richie slips coins on the counter.]
Make it two. Put 'em both on my tab.
III: Take out your trash
[It would have done to exercise a touch of caution. Sadly he's long since parted ways with the word for the evening. Still frightened, still angry, still too squeamish to go see the people he used to know, Richie's spent the night skipping from bar to bar. To back hall. To alley. He's had a hell of a lot to drink. Smoked something he didn't know the name of, took a couple pills that were offered with glitzy promises for whatever coin he could spare. He'd had a fair bit to spare and lord, it all flew out of his hands like your Auntie's cockatiel making a break for the open window. And he got his party, his fun and his romp and his blissful cloud of forgetfulness. For a few hours, he wasn't Richie Tozier at all. He'd drifted and wandered and basked in the blank beauty of a world he didn't comprehend.
And the journey ended with him folded up in a cobblestone alley. His head lies knocked back against the building's side, legs crooked to the side as he sleeps deep. It's frigid cold, he has the coat and gloves and boots, but passing out sometime around four am with no hurry for shelter leaves him as cold and stiff as a statue. A nasty shock for anyone taking a nighttime stroll or hustling about in the break of dawn.]
IV: Flona Cove- wildcard-ish
[Eventually, even the city itself seems to press in around him like a vice. He'd made the trip out to the Cove a few times, once with the herd for that festival and again with the two girls to check on those dead birds. The train ride over makes him smile, thinking of the way Ann and Haru had gossiped and giggled. The spark is fleeting. He exits the train in the same silent stupor he'd boarded it with.
He'll spend the day exploring. At the beach, he might take out a boat just for kicks, pretend it's January in California and he's got to hit the water before he forgets which coast he's living on. He might check out the tourist traps. Wind up in a gambling hall for shits and giggles. Or he might drift to that little cave with the cool pool, just to sit and think and fill the air with swilling smoke as he works through yet another pack for the day.]
V: Homecoming - closed to previous cr
[It takes a lot longer than he'd be proud to admit. Richie wasn't brave by nature, particularly not when it came to making the big breaks and mends. He was better at playing shit off like nothing mattered and all he cared for was getting his chucks in before meeting his Maker.
Well he went to do it didn't he? And that fucker hadn't showed. Now he's back on soil, and he's wasted a lot of time skirting the small issue of his miraculous return.
Eventually, he figures he ought to make a few rounds. House calls, then.
The knock at the door only comes after two minutes of fussing and a near abandoment of the whole plan. He'd slinked about five steps away before the guilt got the better of him and he finally could raise knuckles to the wood of that door. When it opens, he stands in the frame of it stiffly. His smile is wan and his hands stick doggedly to his pockets. He can't even use his own voice to say hello, coward that he is.]
Howdy partner.
summertimeblues) & you lucky guysWhat: Dealing very poorly with torture, dying, and coming back to life. He didn't sign up to be Jesus
When: Mar. 25th-27th
Where: Olympia, Thesa Station, Flona Cove
Warning(s): Drug and alcohol use and abuse, mentions of gore/death/suicide, sad pod crying, icky feelings.
I: Thesa Station
[There's a relative quiet among the sleeping. It is, in effect, a graveyard. People are here to show their respects, to mourn and to yearn. Today though, wherever you might be, there's a serenade rattling the air between the glass chambers. A guitar thrum mimicked through slaps on the metal to support the rollicking vocals of Elvis Presley. Back from the dead and ready to slide and shake in those blue suede shoes.]
Spider Murphy played the tenor saxophone
Little Joe was blowin' on the slide trombone
The drummer boy from Illinois went crash, boom, bang
The whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang
Let's rock! Everybody let's rock!
[If you round the right corner, you won't find the King. But you'll find Richie Tozier, seated between in a row of about five pods: there's a handsome man in cowboy boots, a black man cut and battered and bandaged to bits, a thin mousy type with a jerry-rigged cast on his arm and rounded specs, a stunning woman whose red hair spills around her in a halo of curls, and a balding man who, even while sleeping, belies a unquantifiable charm and steadiness. He's having the time of his life with a half-finished gin bottle in one hand as the other busies itself playing drums and beats. He's pale, poorly slept if the purple punch bags under his eyes are any indication, and there's a still smoking cigarette butt laying its ash on the floor next to him. But he's seemingly in good spirits, high on the music.]
Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Ro—hey! Hey you! You know this next part, get in on it!
II: Friends in Low Places.
[The bars are that sweet shade of not-too-busy-not-too-slow. Richie slips in and out of the crowds with no difficulty and no recognition. He avoids Shades Darker (hasn't gone back to work yet), avoids places he knows. Sticking clean to the unfamiliar. This place wasn't home and even months later it was failing to pick up any kind of coziness to wilt back on.
But as determined as he is to stay solo and shrug into shadows, he can't help that rising sense of panic. Of emptiness. If he shuts his eyes too long he can hear those howling voices again. He's no man of god but those three days suspended in some ghastly in-between place have left him with doubts. There doesn't have to be a god for there to be a hell.
He doesn't want to keep marinating on it. Desperate and suddenly shaking in the hands, he moves to take a seat at the bar. Someone's just settled in and made an order. Richie slips coins on the counter.]
Make it two. Put 'em both on my tab.
III: Take out your trash
[It would have done to exercise a touch of caution. Sadly he's long since parted ways with the word for the evening. Still frightened, still angry, still too squeamish to go see the people he used to know, Richie's spent the night skipping from bar to bar. To back hall. To alley. He's had a hell of a lot to drink. Smoked something he didn't know the name of, took a couple pills that were offered with glitzy promises for whatever coin he could spare. He'd had a fair bit to spare and lord, it all flew out of his hands like your Auntie's cockatiel making a break for the open window. And he got his party, his fun and his romp and his blissful cloud of forgetfulness. For a few hours, he wasn't Richie Tozier at all. He'd drifted and wandered and basked in the blank beauty of a world he didn't comprehend.
And the journey ended with him folded up in a cobblestone alley. His head lies knocked back against the building's side, legs crooked to the side as he sleeps deep. It's frigid cold, he has the coat and gloves and boots, but passing out sometime around four am with no hurry for shelter leaves him as cold and stiff as a statue. A nasty shock for anyone taking a nighttime stroll or hustling about in the break of dawn.]
IV: Flona Cove- wildcard-ish
[Eventually, even the city itself seems to press in around him like a vice. He'd made the trip out to the Cove a few times, once with the herd for that festival and again with the two girls to check on those dead birds. The train ride over makes him smile, thinking of the way Ann and Haru had gossiped and giggled. The spark is fleeting. He exits the train in the same silent stupor he'd boarded it with.
He'll spend the day exploring. At the beach, he might take out a boat just for kicks, pretend it's January in California and he's got to hit the water before he forgets which coast he's living on. He might check out the tourist traps. Wind up in a gambling hall for shits and giggles. Or he might drift to that little cave with the cool pool, just to sit and think and fill the air with swilling smoke as he works through yet another pack for the day.]
V: Homecoming - closed to previous cr
[It takes a lot longer than he'd be proud to admit. Richie wasn't brave by nature, particularly not when it came to making the big breaks and mends. He was better at playing shit off like nothing mattered and all he cared for was getting his chucks in before meeting his Maker.
Well he went to do it didn't he? And that fucker hadn't showed. Now he's back on soil, and he's wasted a lot of time skirting the small issue of his miraculous return.
Eventually, he figures he ought to make a few rounds. House calls, then.
The knock at the door only comes after two minutes of fussing and a near abandoment of the whole plan. He'd slinked about five steps away before the guilt got the better of him and he finally could raise knuckles to the wood of that door. When it opens, he stands in the frame of it stiffly. His smile is wan and his hands stick doggedly to his pockets. He can't even use his own voice to say hello, coward that he is.]
Howdy partner.
no subject
[ There's real vehemence in her voice. How could he ever say such a thing? As if it would ever be a bad time to... to...
She can feel her overwhelming relief well up inside her—he's all right. He's all right. He's alive. She'd thought she would never see him again, but it's barely been a few days and here he is. Tears prick at the corners of her eyes and crawl up her throat, raw and sticky against the words she wants to say. ]
I am so—so very sorry. I promised—but I could not protect you. I am so sorry!
no subject
What he failed to consider (and keeps doing so like a goddamn idiot, running around and tossing away the extremely specific circumstances that kept them all divided in the fine print) was her code of honor. She'd been so eager to take every needle coming for the rest of them. Step in the way of any blow, take the vulture on. Hell, drink the pints down to the last drop until her liver called it quits on her first real binge, just to get a win in on those jungle lugheads. Richie knew she'd be hurt, sweet little thing, but the offense was a real dig.
The sense of failure.
His shame shoots up quicker than bamboo, roots in hard and hearty into his innards. Richie immediately grabs her by the shoulders, bending so slightly at the knees.]
No, no, no. Clair, stop it. Don't you dare. This wasn't on you. Not one bit. You can't stand there and just— [His own throat is swelling. Final boarding call for intelligible speech, because his own eyes are prickling and it's hurtful just looking at her face, all screwed up and trying to stay stiff. Stay stoic. Richie swallows thickly.] Please. Let's go inside, okay?
no subject
She doesn't know what haunts her more: that he died and she could've prevented it, or that she couldn't. But that he died at all—that weighs heaviest.
Now that she's started crying she finds that it doesn't stop so easily. Even with his hands on her shoulders and his face just in front of hers—Mila, she doesn't even know what she's crying about anymore. Guilt, failure, relief, joy. She wasn't ready to mourn him and she wasn't nearly through with her grief, and now she's being pulled sideways from between the two. ]
Rich— [ She's sobbing in earnest now, so she lunges forward and throws her arms around him for a tight hug. Her voice is thick with tears, slightly muffled against the front of his shirt. ] I am so very happy that you—you've returned.
no subject
Richie takes her weight with no fight, no fuss. Accepts the arms around him with only a moment's stiffness before he ties his own around her back. Leans his cheek into her hair.
They'd known each other for what, four months? If that. And all this crying over him like he's something near and dear to her. He hates to see it, that she's hurting this bad. She deserves better, she's just a damn kid. But they're all so lost and what little they have can only be found in each other. The Storm took the bulk of the real family and friends. What was left but a bunch of castaways, groping for footholds and reasons to keep on going?
He rubs her back, silent for some time. His shirt is dampening under the broken dams of her eyes. He never had kids. Never had much to do with them, outside of hassling the little nuggets his friends and coworkers brought around. Clair's on that cusp where she's tottering into adulthood, but so much of her is unbridled emotion and naivety. He doesn't feel fit to handle it. But he'd like to. He'd like to do better this time.
Second chances seemed cheaper around here than usual, but that didn't mean he could keep on squandering it.]
I'm happy too. How else was I gonna get a chance to peep this squishy face of yours? [He puts a hand to the side of her head and pulls her back some, wiping at the wet tracks with his thumb.] Look at ya! You darn mess. Come on, kiddo, let's take this inside. I'm not going anywhere. I'm promising you this time.