Room 323 [Saturday, Afternoon]

[comeoutwrong]

Sleep, still not the easiest thing to come by, and when it finally did, the timing was all off, leaving Effy crawling her way to consciousness in the early afternoon. Not that it mattered, really, since it was a weekend anyway.

There was the surfacing of the realisation she should probably get up, get dressed, go out, do something... But not really the inclination. Too many other things spinning around in her head. A brief investigation down the side of her bed revealed the bottle she kept there was empty. Well. There went that solution. Shit.

Eventually, she made the effort to slip out of bed and turn up her music loud enough to almost drown out most of the snippets of conversation in the back of her head making her twitchy, and slid down to sit on the floor, back against her bed and head dropped back against the mattress. Picking up bad, floor-sitting habits. Wonder whose fault that was.

[[Door is closed, post can be open with the warning the girl is extra messy and broken. ETA: aaand I should probably tack on an extra WARNING for delicate subject matters ahead: discussion of alcohol abuse, mental health issues, etc.]]

Comments

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Not enough for you to do anything about," he pointed out, watching her carefully. "So, what have you been doing? Drinking until you pass out? Brooding?"

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"One way of getting some decent sleep." Which couldn't stop the odd nightmare from rearing it's ugly head, but maybe it stepped in to cut down the amount. A girl could hope.

"And more fun than staring at the walls." Didn't really want anyone picking up something was off, so popping out to common rooms wasn't exactly high on her agenda.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"So, you're not getting sleep. You're drinking. You're acting like a hermit," he said, ticking those off on his hand. "And I bet if I asked you how you were, you'd say fine."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"If I wanted you to yell at me, sure." But right now she was getting the sense he a) wouldn't believe her and b) ... would go for the yelling idea. Or at least, be extremely cranky at her. He'd already bitched about her lying once in the last couple minutes.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

He'd probably definitely start yelling. Or snapping. He wouldn't be happy, at the very least. "You've got such faith in me, don't you?"

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"... Yep." It helped that she'd seen him do it before. There were certain ways in which he was fairly predictable to her. "Kinda know you."

"Bet if I said anything else you'd think I was an impostor." Or, you know, worry.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"So, maybe I should yell anyway," he said, raising an eyebrow. "Not like anything else seems to be working. You're fucking hibernating, Effy. And it's not winter."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"Sure it is somewhere." Like, the Southern hemisphere. Not that she should be taking that as an excuse to hermit. "What's the yelling supposed to get you?"

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Maybe that'd get through to you," he said, reaching behind him to undo the sling so he could get his arm out of it. It was going to fucking hurt but he didn't care.

"Or maybe you should yell at me," he offered.

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"What're you doing?" Yeah, pretty sure that yanking off the sling wasn't going to be the greatest idea ever as far as healing went.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"I'm gonna fuck my shoulder up a little more," he said, dropping that sling beside him carelessly. "Nothing to concern yourself with. I'm sure you've got other people to listen to tonight."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Maybe she did, but...

Effy shook her head. "And what the fuck good is that gonna do?" Throwing off an injury just because he was pissed at her. Great logic.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Because I fucking want to. Who cares if it's bad for me, if that's what I wanna do, I'm gonna do it."

Believe it or not, he was trying to make a point even if he was going about it in a painful sort of way. He actually did raise that bum arm of his, feeling the pull of stiff muscles and the pain immediately after.

He didn't even bother to hide it. "I don't think you'd notice anything different about me if I didn't do this in front of you. Maybe you'll wake up for a bit."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"I'm awake!" Clearly, and the look of pain on his face was enough to make her expression twist in discomfort. "Been talking to me ten fucking minutes. Don't dislocate something for that."

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Oh, it's fine," he said, gritting that out despite how not fine it was. He rotated that shoulder around again and would have passed out if he hadn't been steeling himself against it.

"You haven't been awake since you got back," he added after that had passed. "Wake the fuck up Effy and get out of your head. I know you can so do it now."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Not fine. That was definitely the look of Not Fucking Fine, and she shook her head. If he wanted to distress her, he was going the right way about that. "Alex, stop it! What the fuck?"

If he wanted reactions, putting himself through great fucking pain was at least one way he'd found that worked.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

Hey, if this is what it took to get through that haze she'd been walking around in since they'd been back, he'd do it. He wasn't going to solve it but he knew she could get out of it.

"Why should I stop it?" he asked, raising his arm again and keeping his eyes on hers. "Because you say so? You don't care. You've got other things to do. You've been gone since we got back. So, I can do this without worry."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

Even with her like this, there was a point that was going too far, and had her pushing herself off the floor. Only slight hesitation as she overcame the wobbliness that came with a week of not really looking after herself, and that wasn't going to stop her getting to him. Not going to stop her reaching out to try and fucking make him put his arms back down either.

"Stop." Apparently this was what it took. "Just stop!" He wanted her yelling at him. There was that.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Or what?" he asked, not resisting her hold but getting his voice up to the same levels as hers. "You'll glare at me and then go away? You'll retreat back into that bubble of yours? You'll go drink some more? What do you care?"

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"I care!" Sometimes too much. Didn't really know what to do with that, if she was completely honest. "You know I do." She really wouldn't be getting this worked up if she didn't.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

The pain in his shoulder was making itself really known but he bit down on his lip and stared back at her.

"So, tell me what you're seeing right now," he challenged, lifting his chin. "Get out of your fucking head, Effy, I know you can do it and tell me what you're seeing."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"You, hurting yourself for no fucking good reason!" If he was trying to teach her a lesson, he was doing it in a really unorthodox, extremely painful way. "Stop it," she repeated.

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Because me holding still is really going to stop it from hurting?" he asked, looking at her steadily. "No. Of course it's not. I know you're hurting, sitting here in a fucking room that looks like a tomb and telling me that you're fine to my face."

He shook his head and clenched his hand into a fist. "I'm hurting myself for a damn good reason. You are not a prisoner in your goddamn head and if it took something extreme to get some emotion into you, I'll do it again and again and again."

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"Don't." At least on that there a less yelling, her voice cracking a little on the word as she struggled to say whatever it was she needed to say. He was making his pain, her fault, in a very visible way. At least the emotional pain of her little lockout the last week or so, she hadn't seen. "I'm here."

Anything else going on in her head was taking a backseat to him right now. Which was what he wanted, right?

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

The attention on him didn't really matter right now. He'd just wanted her to get out of her head and realize that she could do that if she'd tried. He'd just made her try.

"So, tell me what hurts, Effy," he said, lowering his own voice.