![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
"They didn't break me. I broke myself." | open
Who: Randel Oland (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
toten_sie) & you
What: nightmares, stress, and catch-all
When: january
Where: olympia
Warning(s): nightmares; starters are marked; let me know if you'd like a starter @ yarnzipan on plurk
[ BACK TO WORK | shades darker | olympia red light district | open ]
[ Randel's been avoiding going out much if he can help it. He doesn't want to hear the muttering in the streets, doesn't want to hear the rumbling of war. It's better here at work, at the brothel. At the brothel, the noises of sex and pleasure, the laughter of people engaged in mindless enjoyment... it's a relief, to be somewhere where he doesn't have to think of it. The brothel is like the home he had before any of that darkness came into his life and he ends up spending time there even when he's technically off shift: not spending time with any of the workers there, 'paid' time anyway, just hanging around in the empty areas or dozing in the back alley behind the building.]
[ NIGHTMARES | park | around olympia | open - likelihood of nightmare discussion]
[ He has an apartment now. He'd been invited there by Reinhardt, but his sleep has been so terrible lately, he can't bring himself to go there. He can't bring himself to interrupt people's sleep or be a bother. That's why he's found a few spots around the city, in the parks, where he can have his nightmares. The Natha had done what they could, had calmed his sleep so far, but now there's nothing to be done about it. He's afraid, it feels like all the time, and more often than not, he shuffles on the ground in his sleep, waking with a scream. ]
[ TRYING TO HELP | deserter enclave | open ]
[ When he'd found out about people leaving the cities, leaving the war behind, it'd been like a revelation. He didn't have much for transportation, but he had his legs and a willingness to help, and since he'd been working for a month and spent so little, he also had the money to buy supplies. That's why he's been spending most of his time when he isn't at work going on trips to the deserters, delivering what he can and finding out what else they might need. He's considered staying there a time or two, but Abel's lessons and his own fear keep him returning to the city, to the safety of the brothel and the streets. He's a city creature, whatever else he is, and the outskirts are too wild for him to feel safe there.
Not to mention that he knows how fragile their safety is. They'd rolled through more than a few outposts in his time in the army, more than a few people who thought they could live outside of the troubles society.
In some ways, it makes him feel like what he's doing is pointless. But he has to do something, so he's trying to do what he figures the Lieutenant would do. These people are in need of war relief, even though the war hasn't even started yet, because started or not, it'd taken the people's homes from them. Until she woke up, until they all woke up, he would have to serve as Section III's representative... for whatever that's worth. ]
[ pirate stomping | flona cove | open - possible violence and psychological trauma ]
[ On the recommendation of one of the girls at brothel, he'd taken a ride out. It'd been rocky and a little awkward, as much because finding a beast big enough for him wasn't easy as anything else, but he'd figured he could use the animal to help him do a supply run as well, give some purpose to his trip. He'd gone a little far afield from that, since he was pretty much the worst sort of horseman, which is when he'd found the boats and gone to investigate. Creeping further, he'd discovered the pirates and what they were up to... and now, teeth in his lower lip, he's considering something... unpleasant.
The miners need their supplies.
Something like this could be misconstrued as a sort of attack.
It might even be an attack.
He needed to do something. His hand was itching towards his lantern. But... he really really didn't want to.]
toten_sie) & youWhat: nightmares, stress, and catch-all
When: january
Where: olympia
Warning(s): nightmares; starters are marked; let me know if you'd like a starter @ yarnzipan on plurk
[ BACK TO WORK | shades darker | olympia red light district | open ]
[ Randel's been avoiding going out much if he can help it. He doesn't want to hear the muttering in the streets, doesn't want to hear the rumbling of war. It's better here at work, at the brothel. At the brothel, the noises of sex and pleasure, the laughter of people engaged in mindless enjoyment... it's a relief, to be somewhere where he doesn't have to think of it. The brothel is like the home he had before any of that darkness came into his life and he ends up spending time there even when he's technically off shift: not spending time with any of the workers there, 'paid' time anyway, just hanging around in the empty areas or dozing in the back alley behind the building.]
[ NIGHTMARES | park | around olympia | open - likelihood of nightmare discussion]
[ He has an apartment now. He'd been invited there by Reinhardt, but his sleep has been so terrible lately, he can't bring himself to go there. He can't bring himself to interrupt people's sleep or be a bother. That's why he's found a few spots around the city, in the parks, where he can have his nightmares. The Natha had done what they could, had calmed his sleep so far, but now there's nothing to be done about it. He's afraid, it feels like all the time, and more often than not, he shuffles on the ground in his sleep, waking with a scream. ]
[ TRYING TO HELP | deserter enclave | open ]
[ When he'd found out about people leaving the cities, leaving the war behind, it'd been like a revelation. He didn't have much for transportation, but he had his legs and a willingness to help, and since he'd been working for a month and spent so little, he also had the money to buy supplies. That's why he's been spending most of his time when he isn't at work going on trips to the deserters, delivering what he can and finding out what else they might need. He's considered staying there a time or two, but Abel's lessons and his own fear keep him returning to the city, to the safety of the brothel and the streets. He's a city creature, whatever else he is, and the outskirts are too wild for him to feel safe there.
Not to mention that he knows how fragile their safety is. They'd rolled through more than a few outposts in his time in the army, more than a few people who thought they could live outside of the troubles society.
In some ways, it makes him feel like what he's doing is pointless. But he has to do something, so he's trying to do what he figures the Lieutenant would do. These people are in need of war relief, even though the war hasn't even started yet, because started or not, it'd taken the people's homes from them. Until she woke up, until they all woke up, he would have to serve as Section III's representative... for whatever that's worth. ]
[ pirate stomping | flona cove | open - possible violence and psychological trauma ]
[ On the recommendation of one of the girls at brothel, he'd taken a ride out. It'd been rocky and a little awkward, as much because finding a beast big enough for him wasn't easy as anything else, but he'd figured he could use the animal to help him do a supply run as well, give some purpose to his trip. He'd gone a little far afield from that, since he was pretty much the worst sort of horseman, which is when he'd found the boats and gone to investigate. Creeping further, he'd discovered the pirates and what they were up to... and now, teeth in his lower lip, he's considering something... unpleasant.
The miners need their supplies.
Something like this could be misconstrued as a sort of attack.
It might even be an attack.
He needed to do something. His hand was itching towards his lantern. But... he really really didn't want to.]
no subject
It helps.
[ Brusque, not forceful. It's grotesquely intimate, watching someone's worst fears play across their sleeping face. He wouldn't be so charitable to the person rousing him, but Bruce's nightmares are nearly always experienced alone, and after, left to be brutal in ways that only cut him. ]
no subject
He deserves everything he sees, every hand reaching out from the darkness and the pools of blood to drag him down. He put them there, after all. He decides a different tack. ]
My name is Randel. Who are you, sir?
no subject
[ For a second he considers, just a ghost. ]
Alan. You sleep out here, Randel?
no subject
I'd rather not disturb people's sleep.
[ He works odd hours because he works at a brothel and his sleep has been disturbed since the rumblings of war started. ]
It's what I'm used to anyway.
[ He's been homeless since he was roughly five or six years old, since his home burned down to the ground along with his mothers and his father-
The less said about what happened there, the better. Not because the man was evil or abusive. But because he was kind and loving and hadn't been able to handle it any better than Randel ever had. ]
no subject
And where do you work?
no subject
[ Oland, the last name he gives if pressed, is not so much a real last name as a necessity of enlistment. He has never had a last name, because he's never been a registered citizen. Instead, he was born in District Zero, a slum in the center of the Imperial Capital that had been officially ruled a 'lawless' zone, abandoned by the government, unregulated by any law or order from the state.
While he's been outside of District Zero for a few years, it still flavors his perceptions. Namely, there's not a single ounce of discomfort or awkwardness at mentioning the name of the brothel and that he works there. After all, it's exactly the kind of place he was born, and where most of his sisters worked.
There's a lot to read from him, for someone looking. ]
I protect the women and men there. I don't usually have to do much.
[ He's almost eight feet tall. That's clear enough even while he's on the ground. And just as clearly, all of it's muscle. He knows how to loom, he's saying, but right now, that's the farthest thing from what he's giving off. One of his arms is still shaking, after all. ]
no subject
[ No one is truly invulnerable. ]
Been there long?
no subject
Since I got here. A few months back.
Before that, I was with the Imperial Army, Section III.
[ He's wearing a coat that looks much like something out of WWI, with a patch on one arm saying just that. Atop it is a pair of scissors open beneath a smiling jack o'lantern. At the end, he adds- ]
Sir.
no subject
None of that.
[ A commanding presence, but he's not trying that mask on for size now. ]
There are better places to sleep.
[ Not the park, where there's risk (no one is invulnerable), but nowhere that can harm others. Containment, that's second nature to him. He's dealt with real monsters. ]
no subject
Yes, sir.
[ But there's a bow of his head that says, well, he was joking. No more 'sir'. He won't. ]
Where?
[ Which is approximately when one of his jacket pockets starts squirming. ]
no subject
What's that?
no subject
Randel looks over at Bruce. ]
They like small spaces.
no subject
[ Little guy isn't going crawling off just yet, Bruce has something in his own pocket for his strays, setting it down in a small bowl. ]
Cat person?
no subject
They like the warmth. I like to know they're safe for a little while. But I like most animals.
no subject
[ Bruce picks somewhere to sit, watch and inhabit silence for a while. He misses the cowl, in moments like these, when it was nothing but that carved space where nothing had to exist besides necessity and clarity. ]
no subject
I don't deserve your concern. If you're here to keep me company.
[ There's not thing angry or dismissive to his tone. It's just... matter of fact. He doesn't. As he's told others, everything that makes him scream in his sleep? He put it there, as far as he's concerned. ]
no subject
I like cats.
[ so sit down, Randel :| ]
no subject
One of the little tabbies crawls out from another pocket and he lifts her gently over towards 'Alan'. ]
She's very sweet.
[ To be fair, he hasn't gotten up from sitting, really. ]