[CLOSED] I am not okay and I need you to see it

[littlefairytale]

Who: Ruby (littlefairytale), Darcy (saltwaterlungs), Dimitri (prince_of_beasts) and Phil (goodweather)
What: Ruby finally talks about some things
When: Earlyish September
Where: 499 Winter's Avenue Farmhouse
Warnings: Explicit discussion of suicide, plus a likely side of discussion of child soldier stuff and mass casualty events



The last few months have been a series of ups and downs. In many ways, Ruby is doing better recently—living in the farmhouse has been good for her, she's made progress in therapy, the medication Sally gave her is starting to work, and the shawl she got from Celestine is comforting even on bad days. But doing better doesn't mean she is better, and with the disappearance of people like Peter and Erin, and now the looming spectre of that Visitor's Centre, there have been a lot of bad days.

She's not sure what kind of day it is when something finally gives—good or bad or something else entirely. It doesn't really matter, she supposes. All that matters is that something in her shifts and she knows that if she doesn't let it happen now, then it might be months before she finds the courage again, if she ever does. She has to do this. She has to tell someone before something does it for her, or something stops her, or— or anything else happens.

So, that evening, Ruby comes downstairs to join the others in the family room and just says: "Can— can we have a talk? All of us? Please?"

Comments

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri had been making notes on the farm's progress. He looks up at Ruby's entrance, and snaps to attention immediately, waving his journal to dry the ink before shutting it and setting it aside.

"What is it? Has something happened?"

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy sets aside his sheet of Braille contractions practice from Helena onto the table and glances back in Ruby's direction, both eyebrows raised to emote that he's listening with a "mm?" accompanying it. He's trying not to jump to any conclusions, but there's a tinge of worry that it's bad news.

[goodweather]

"What's up, Rubes?" issues from the couch, where Phil has been having a lie-down. It's not unusual, especially these days, between the back pain and the commute. He's starting to think he should get a carriage. Then again, he likes the exercise.

There's a faint feeling that he knows what this is about, but he won't say anything until she does.

[littlefairytale]

Ruby spends a solid five seconds not sure whether to keep standing where she's standing or sit down, before she finally moves and sits in one of the armchairs with her legs down, then crossed, then tucked under her. Nervous energy radiating constantly. When she finally settles, she's still fiddling with the hem of her skirt.

"...um, no. Nothing's— nothing's happened, at least, nothing new," she says, finally. Gods, she doesn't know how to get into this even now. "There's— there's something I think I need to tell you that happened... before? Before here."

[prince_of_beasts]

So it's not a present emergency. Dimitri relaxes partially, leaning forward in his seat. "Whatever it is, we'll listen."

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy makes another affirmative noise, turning around properly in his seat. He remembers bits and pieces from before Ruby arrived, but evidently if they're all being gathered like this, it's something he doesn't know.

[goodweather]

Phil doesn’t pull himself to sitting up, per se, but he does pull into more of an upwards recline. It’s enough to properly face her from where he is.

[littlefairytale]

"...I've told you how I went home. How my plans backfired and Atlas fell. People died, Salem got the relics, and me and my team fell through the void into this place called the Ever After. A place we'd all heard of, but only in the form of a fairytale. We had no idea how to escape, get back home. It was only down there I found out the— the worst of what'd happened. About— about Penny dying, probably for good this time."

She can't quite look any of them in the face, though even with her head bowed watching herself fiddle with her skirt she glances their way every now and then. There's a shine of tears in her eye that she has to blink back, a quiver in her voice she has to swallow.

"I— I wasn't doing so great. I tried to step up how I always had before but by the time we found Jaune and Crescent Rose I— couldn't even fight. I hadn't slept in days, I was seeing things, I couldn't take everyone trying to— to look to me for guidance. So I snapped. I said a lot of horrible things I-I don't think I meant and I ran away until I found the girl who hated my guts looking for a fight.

"...I got one. In a way. But battle isn't— it isn't how I died."

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri covers his mouth with one hand, failing to mask his sympathetic grief. This hits altogether too close to home for comfort, and he has a sinking suspicion he knows where Ruby is going with this.

"It's alright," he says, voice steadier than he feels. "Take as long as you need."

[saltwaterlungs]

The second bit of collateral damage hits Darcy, and his hands tighten on the chair. He considers offering to go make tea for a moment, but decides against interrupting. Maybe in a moment when Ruby needs comforting he can let the people better at it handle that part.

For multiple reasons, Darcy's eyes flick to Phil. What Ruby is getting to is, after all, one of the few manners of death that he and Phil don't share.

[goodweather]

He hasn’t moved. The look he wears isn’t stricken or shocked, no furrowed brow, no tugged lip. Just attentive. Knowing. He spares a look at Darcy, saying nothing, then turns back to Ruby.

cw: reference to suicide and suicide baiting/psychological torture

[littlefairytale]

"That girl who hated me... her Semblance lets her make illusions, physically tangible illusions that move and speak and fight. I walked into her hideout and there was a table surrounded by people I got killed. Penny and Pyrrha and— and others."

It's an uncharitable position to hold toward herself. Ironwood died of his own hubris, Clover died because he couldn't disobey an order, Lionheart died to his own cowardice, Ozpin died before Ruby even knew the truth... but the truth doesn't matter to Ruby's guilt.

"She made them say— say so many horrible things, while they were fighting me. They all felt true. I'd failed them, I'd— I'd failed everyone, and—" she presses her lips together, breathes, and reorients. Focus. "...in the Ever After, there's this... process. Afterans— ascend. They take the leaves from the tree at the centre and they go through a transformation into something new, something... better. They become entirely new people, no memories, no baggage. That's— that's what she wanted me to do. She'd even made a special tea out of the leaves, heh."

It's an empty little sound, not a real laugh.

"And— and by the end I just wanted it to stop. I just— I just wanted me to stop. Being Ruby wasn't helping anyone and I— I couldn't take it. I drank the tea. I— I killed myself."

[prince_of_beasts]

It doesn't feel good to be right.

Ruby's grief and guilt echo Dimitri's so strongly his own dead begin to clamor. He shakes his head once, twice, sharply; the tic doesn't quiet them, but they subside enough that he can hear Ruby speak.

"I'm sorry," he says softly, when she's done. "I'm so sorry. You didn't deserve that."

cw reference to suicidal ideation

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy feels a rumble at the back of their head. Terrors like that were often associated with the Phantasm key, people who died in terror and anguish. They wonder for just a moment if the Scream hadn't been there, would they have lost their own fight and ended up like that? Something dead and grasping and reaching just to inflict a last act of pain and terror onto the people they once cared for?

"Jesus Christ," they offer, audibly horrified.

[goodweather]

Well, that's sufficiently fucked, just like everything else in these kids' lives.

Sigh.

Phil, with a grunt of some effort, drags himself to sitting. And then he isn't really sure what to say; he has plenty of ideas, of course, but translating that into words that don't just land like rocks is a different matter entirely, and not one he feels he's gotten all that good at.

"Rubes," he says, a hand outstretched, "c'mere."

[littlefairytale]

There's a little part of her that still feels the urge to hide away, but there's a far larger part of her that feels something almost like relief at finally saying the words out loud. It's not enough to make her relax, or to stop the shininess in her eye, but it's enough to keep her centred and present.

She lifts her head at the sound of Phil's grunting, to look at the others until Phil offers out his hand. After only momentary hesitation, she shuffles off her armchair to go over to him, visibly not quite sure whether to take the hand itself or what.

[goodweather]

They're both cyclopes, and in a brief moment of comedy, they're both missing the same eye, so looking at her straight is slightly odd. Still he reaches for her hand to take it in his, young callouses on old weathering, and tugs gently. It'll be a hug if she follows it; if not, nothing but holding on.

"I know I don't understand what it's like to have your kind of responsibility. I've never dealt with all of that fighting or the choices you've had to make, and all those lives depending on you. I can empathize with it, but I don't know it. Your siblings would. ... But I know what it's like to want to die. I was--younger than you, when I first tried. And I have killed myself. A lot."

Deep breath.

"When I say that, I'm not trying to, to downplay any of... any of it. I just want you know that I've been on that battlefield. I've flown that flight. I've flown it a hell of a lot," he laughs briefly, a mildly convulsive sound, "I'm flying it right now. So I need you to know that when you're... when you're out on that field, you're not alone."

His voice breaks. He sniffs and clears his throat, then gestures with his head to the others. "I know they've been there, too."

[littlefairytale]

She follows, lets herself be drawn into the hug and lets herself accept the comfort that she doesn't always think she deserves. A part of her still isn't sure she does, but she's trying to ignore that part. She's meant to be being kinder to herself, even if it's hard.

Because it's been so hard, standing surrounded by people at home who expected her to be strong. Feeling alone in a crowded room because she was up on the pedestal and they were at her feet, where they couldn't see the cracks forming under the pressure. Because whenever she looked around her, everyone else either needed help or was doing so much better in the face of the same things that she felt all the weaker for her inability to do better. Because time and time again she heard I'll follow you and I believe in you and I need you but never knew how to turn around and admit that she needed them in turn, needed help in turn.

Because no one back home ever seemed to feel this way and so she had to be uniquely broken, didn't she? Ruby Rose was broken.

But she's... not. Not like that, anyway.

Ruby listens to Phil, and looks at Dimitri, at Darcy, and she doesn't feel alone in a crowd anymore. She only makes it that far before bursting into high-pitched, gasping sobs that feel like a dam has collapsed and the pressure is bursting free.

[prince_of_beasts]

Ruby came to speak to them all, but still, watching this moment feels -- intrusive. What can Dimitri add to this? What can he offer that wouldn't be a pale echo of Phil's comfort?

Then Ruby breaks into sobs, and none of that matters. Dimitri's on his feet and across the room in a heartbeat, resting his hand on Ruby's shoulder.

He doesn't know what to say, but he's here.

cws continue

[saltwaterlungs]

Yeah, Phil is just good at this. Is warm and comforting in a way that is always welcome, even with his own struggles. A moment later, Darcy vwoops into the shade between Phil and Ruby and the couch, further pulling them all in together. Phil's only Darcy's dad and they would prefer to keep it that way but the lattice that holds them together is family of a kind nonetheless, strong and flexible.

For a moment, the fuzzy image of theirself at Phil's age gets a little clearer. Someone who probably still struggles, still is sad sometimes, still feels the way they feel now, but... just used to it. Worn into being theirself the same way you wear in a pair of boots. It would be nice to imagine them being this useful as an adult. That everything they've suffered might one day be able to guide someone else out of it.

Darcy feels a kind of cold sympathetic tears welling at the back of their throat, croaks-

"It's not your fault. She did that to you, it's... not your fault you took it. But. Don't do it again. Please."

It's not like Darcy has much faith in things improving, not like the hope they maintained in the last place ever did them much good, but they can't deal with Ruby dying again. It might be a selfish request, but it's one they mean.

[goodweather]

Phil moves, disentangling himself not entirely, but enough for Dimitri and Darcy to enter the space and hug her tight. Phil's a good acquaintance, a wise friend maybe. It's those two who are her family.

When Darcy pleads, it isn't only Ruby they're speaking to. He said he'd been managing it, but it's... difficult. Of course it's difficult. He's still struggling. Hearing their desperation, no matter for whom--don't do it again, please--hits a sympathetic note inside him, and his grasp tightens.

[littlefairytale]

It takes a little time for Ruby to be able to do more than cry uselessly, but eventually the gasping turns to hiccuping turns to sniffling as she lets herself lean into Darcy's presence and rest a hand over the one on her shoulder. Only then does she manage to nod, and only after a few long, deep breaths in and out does she find the ability to speak.

"I-I won't. I-I— I promise. I won't— do it to myself again. I-I don't— I don't want to want to."

She wants to feel better, she wants to feel ready to live, she wants to want to be Ruby Rose again.