Logs:Something Positive

Something Positive
Dramatis Personae DJ, Sera
In Absentia	2021-11-26 "...'I lost my whole world and filled the void with all-consuming anger' would make a badass supervillain origin story."
Location <NYC> Riverdale - The Bronx
The bluster in the air today is making it start to feel more like winter than the middle of fall, though plenty of the trees still have their leaves in brilliant reds and oranges and yellows all around. The cold hasn't seemed to bother Ophelia much; in the backyard of one of the mansions the goat is winning the milk crate challenge, perched atop a pyramid of the things with a flesh-toned prosthetic arm dangling from her mouth. At the bottom of the pyramid, the presumptive owner of this arm doesn't seem all that fussed to be missing it; DJ (bundled warm against the weather in a fleece-lined flannel, thick chore jacket, charcoal scarf and hat) is looking up at the goat with brows raised. "Oh," comes very mildly, "that's why I couldn't find that." Sera eyeing one of the trees in the yard speculatively, then the fence beside it, then the milk crates under Ophelia. Then does a double-take on the last. "Better be careful," she warns DJ, her voice solemn, though she cannot conceal the mirth that trickles out through her powers, "she's armed." The teen looks plenty warm in a forest green duffel coat, unbuttoned at the moment, over a flannel in red, purple, and blue plaid, flare leg jeans, and brown lace-up boots. She wanders back toward DJ, the wash of her curiosity strong enough to overcome her diffidence and, presumably, to put tree-climbing on the back burner. "Does it help much?" She waves a hand at the prosthesis currently serving as goat chew toy. "Not when she's eating it, no." DJ's answer is a little wry. Still, he's making no move to reclaim his lost limb. "-- not when it's on me, either. I haven't really gotten very, uh, handy with it." His shrug is small, a lot more nonchalant than the somewhat bitter twist that accompanies it inwardly. "S'what physical therapy is for, though." The cheerful optimism in his voice does not really carry through to his feelings here, but the amusement does when he adds: "Honestly that's probably the best use it's had all week. How was your Thanksgiving?" Sera giggles, coaxing the brief harmony of their respective amusement just a touch higher while quieting the sympathy that rises beneath it. "If you're sick of the limb jokes, I'll c --" She stutters only for an instant. "-- cease and desist." Her good cheer fades at the question, but she quashes the grief that bubbles decisively this time. "So full of delicious food, but I probably didn't need to tell you that. You already know Luci's an amazing cook, but I helped, too." There's a swell of pride here, then of embarrassment. Then she frowns, her grief returning gentler, less obtrusive -- or at least what spills over to DJ is. She swallows and looks away, but then turns back to muster a faint smile. "But. You know. How was yours?" There's a small twitch at the side of DJ's mouth at the aborted word, too thin and quick to resolve into any real expression. "I'm sure the food was fantastic," he agrees readily, sitting himself down on one of the lowest set of milk crates in the pyramid. "And that he was glad for the help." A hard knot has formed in his throat at the predictable return question, but he swallows it down easily enough. "Oh, man, I was a terrible American, I didn't really do much. Delivered some meals for my church and then watched Netflix. Worse ways to spend a day, I guess." "You should come by later so I can pack you some leftovers." Sera winces, briefly embarrassed again. "Okay, that sounded probably not so great, but it is still fantastic food and we have so much." She rocks forward onto the balls of her feet and bounces experimentally. The boots look new and a bit stiff. "I'm sure the story about the first Thanksgiving was made up, but bringing food to people in need is probably more in the spirit of the holiday anyway." The warmth behind her words is not much dimmed by the gust of icy wind that ruffles her short(ish) shaggy hair. "I hope my family back -- on the other -- in our world had a great feast, too." She stares down at the toes of her boots, breathing through the wave of sorrow likely as familiar to DJ as it is to her by now. What's not quite so easily managed is the sharp edge of anger that cutting through it. "Without me." DJ sucks his cheeks inward, chewing on their insides through the wave of his own tangled feelings -- grief, exhaustion, uncertainty -- that follow. He leans forward, resting his elbow on a knee and looking down toward his own boots for a couple breaths until his feelings have settled into a manageable quiet. "I think this is our world, now. Would it make it easier here if you imagined them eating gruel? They might have." His brows crease. "Doesn't seem much like Matt." "Sorry," Sera murmurs, folding her arms over each other perhaps in a moderately successful attempt to cover the tightness of her shoulders. Her eyes lose focus for a moment, and the pull of her emotions recedes. She does not relax, though. "I don't know what to call the one we came from anymore. I do want them to be safe and happy and all that, but I just --" Her head shakes as she dismisses the wave of frustration only distantly sensible to DJ. She rallies, not quite able to make herself laugh but amused all the same. "I can't even imagine how affronted he would look if he got gruel for Thanksgiving supper." Her brows gather, thoughtful. "The -- other one. This Matt will eat anything. Not quite on Ophelia's level, but a good effort for a human..." This trails off the furrow of her brows quizzical, now. "...mutant...person? Point is he's kind of like a goat. But Luci could make even gruel fancy and delicious, anyhow." Her breath hitches minutely, but she manages to keep firm hold her power this time. "Both of them. Probably all of them in all the worlds." "I don't really know, either." DJ tips his head back to watch Ophelia where she's settled with remarkably little concern for the precarity of her perch, chewing on the fingers of her stolen toy. "This Matt would probably make Thanksgiving Gruel seem very dramatic and enviable, somehow." The sting of his grief this time is fainter. "Maybe there's a world out there somewhere where Matt's the cook and Luci just relaxes on Thanksgiving." "We should number them. Then we won't run out, since there's infinite numbers." Sera tilts her head slightly to one side. "Wait, is infinity itself a number?" She's digging her phone from a pocket even as she wonders aloud. "Making gruel sound dramatic and enviable would probably work on me." This absently as she swipes out a query. She had just flicked up to scroll through the results, but stops and looks up at DJ, her googling forgotten. "I wouldn't need any convincing to eat gruel if I got to go back -- to World 1." Her control falters, grief and fury alike surging strong even as she struggles to gather her powers back in. "This is so dumb. It's not his fault I ended up here. I agreed." Her shoulders curl in tight abort a sob before it surfaces, her jaw clenching tight enough for the physical pain to bleed over for a split second. Then she clamps it all back down, though she does not relax at once. Whether or not she's still wrangling those emotions, they are no longer buffeting DJ. "Doesn't make it any easier, does it?" DJ's brow furrows, uncertain. "I don't think so. I think it's a concept that's beyond any number. -- You should look that up." He draws in a breath, steadies himself; his own anger is deeper, tired and worn. "No. I don't think that makes it easier. You're allowed to be angry, you know. Or sad. Or all of it. I don't think there's a right way to be cast into the wrong world." Sera is breathing a bit too fast, her eyes a little too bright, but she's rallying again all the same. "I know I'm allowed. Maybe even have to. But I don't want to be angry or sad and I especially don't want to be angry at Luci." Her fingers dig into the opposite arm where she's kept a convulsive grip on it since reeling her powers back in. "{It feels like a betrayal that I am furious with him but not this Luci.}" The refined accent and diction of her French might well pose a more dramatic contrast to her English than the change in language per se. "{Which is also foolishness, since he will never know. I doubt very much if he'd feel betrayed even if he knew.}" DJ's brows furrow as he looks back at Sera. "{I'm sorry.}" There's a brief twist of confusion in him as she speaks that doesn't quite find enough purchase to root itself, settling instead back into his previous exhaustion. "(Probably he wouldn't! It seems really unlikely he sent you here hoping you'd be miserable and hate the family he sent you to be with your whole life long.}" His hand turns up in front of him. "{But he won't know, and that's horrible, and a lot's horrible, and I'm sorry. Past accepting that sometimes you're going to be sad and mad or deciding to find a way out of that anger -- I really don't know what other options there are.}" Sera appears to have finally wrested control of her emotions again, or at least of her emoting -- her breathing evens out and her shoulders ease, then the rest of her. "No, he wanted me to be happy, and he definitely wouldn't wish any Thanksgiving gruel on me. I do have another options: just make the pain -- or anger, or whatever -- stop. And it's so tempting, every time!" Her hands finally relax, and she slips them into the pockets of her coat. "Luci says it's not good to do that, though." She also takes a seat on the bottom tier of milk crates. "{Please forgive me, I am acting like a whiney toddler. All this --}" Her expansive gesture mostly sweeps across the canopy of flame-colored leaves whispering and waving in the wind. "{This is what it is, whether I have two paths to healing or three or fifty.}" Her shoulders slump, and she pulls her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around the shins. "It's just...a lot, sometimes. What do you do?" The question seems to surprise her, or she comes up short for some other reason. "When it's too much?" "It's a lot," DJ agrees, and for a few moments that's all he says. There's a thick cord of grief that wants to grow, to come up and envelop him with its weight, but he's become adroit at wrangling it to sit somewhere less suffocating. "I do something else. It's often too much and it's way too easy to drown in it. Pray, or find something to help with around here, take Ophelia for a walk, build something. Put something positive into the world instead of letting that negative just -- keep growing. Otherwise that's all it'd ever do." Sera considers this, her own grief and churning unease starting to leak out again as she divides her attention. "I pray a lot." This sounds neutral enough, but there's a low simmering anger beneath it that she pushes back down in lieu of adding, much more confidently, "And I'm writing a novel. And I'm trying out for hockey next term." She turns back to DJ, pillowing her cheek on her knees. "The trouble is remembering to do all that stuff when..." One of her hands peels away, palm down and lifting up as to indicate rising water until it's above her head. "But. I'll try. I don't want to hate my fa --" She seems on the cusp of choosing a different word, but then, "-- family, either. Or this world. Or God. Though I mean..." A certain wry humor seeps back into the semi-controlled turbulence of her emotions. "...'I lost my whole world and filled the void with all-consuming anger' would make a badass supervillain origin story." Some of the color drains from DJ's face at this, a sharper anger flaring in him together with a duller, deeper pain. He lets out a soft huff of something that almost makes it to a laugh, shakes his head, small. "Oh, I'm sure you'd make a badass villain, but the world doesn't really need any more. I bet it'd be great in story form, though." Despite whatever pain has flared in him his smile is genuine enough. "When will we get to read your novel?" Sera pulls in a little tighter on herself, though DJ's anger does not seem to frighten her as it pulls her along. "Sorry," again, as she drags herself back to something vaguely like equilibrium. "Maybe I will write a story about that, someday." She sits up straight as the brightness of her enthusiasm returns. "I'm not sure, the first couple of chapters went really slow, but now I think I might be done by spring. It's a tale of bird meets girl, of magic and adventure and the power of love." Her eyes narrow slightly. "That makes it sound exactly like the kind of book people would expect a teenage girl to write but I'm kinda okay with that." More hesitantly, hopeful and restless, "Do you wanna go -- put something positive into the world? You know I'm really good at holding tools and making dubiously smart but solidly alecky comments." "The world can always use more stories about the power of love." DJ gets to his feet with a nod -- gives Ophelia a long look before giving up the arm evidently for lost. "And I'm really good at needing extra hands. Let's do it."