CT (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
liesdontfindyou) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ph_logs2024-10-14 01:31 am
liesdontfindyou) wrote in ph_logs2024-10-14 01:31 am
Please speak softly for they will hear us [OPEN]
Who: CT (liesdontfindyou) & you!
What: Catch-All for CT
When: Late September through October
Where: Various places around town
Warnings: Trust issues up the wazoo, nudity in the hot springs prompt, more specific warnings in headers whenever they come up
1. And they'll find out why we don't trust them [enforcer's office]
CT has always been a bit of a workaholic, but over the last few weeks those tendencies have escalated until those working at the Enforcer's office will find they encounter her there at all hours of the day—whether she's strictly meant to be on shift or not. She always gets her actual duties done, but outside of those she's spending a lot of time reading up on anything accessible (sometimes files, sometimes things she's checked out from the library) about the Leeds, the Pine Devil, the Demons, and refreshing her notes on the Cult of Nyarlathotep. She rarely remembers to eat and only seems to drink coffee with any regularity—though the keen eyed might notice her nose crinkling when she does, as if she doesn't really like it—which probably says something about her sleeping habits, too.
It's also impossible not to notice how... chilly, things can be when CT and Cerrit have unavoidable reasons to be in the same room. She avoids his office in a way she didn't used to and all essential communication is run through a third party. By the start of October, many otherworlders on the force will probably have an inkling as to why.
2. Speak up, dear, 'cause I cannot hear you [northwest hollow/around]
Part of CT's daily routine is a run, usually in the morning before she heads into work. It's grounding, a holdover from her life before, and it means she stays familiar with the area. The weather taking a turn for the cooler hasn't changed this whatsoever, nor does the early morning fog.
Even the sudden onsets of rain don't seem to deter her. In fact, more often than not, when the skies open she stops only to turn her face to the heavens and let the rain fall on her for a while.
3. I need to know why we don't trust them [hot springs]
Even CT can't keep going forever—if not for lack of trying. Occasionally, aware of an encroaching crash in a way that's less healthy and more treating herself like a faulty machine that needs troubleshooting measures, she has to take a break of some kind.
One way she does this is taking a trip out to the hot springs. There, she strips out of her practical clothes completely, makes sure they're actually put aside safely, and slips into the water. This is true regardless of if she arrives to an empty spring, or is joining someone in the water—a little nudity means nothing to her after years of co-ed military locker rooms and, though she does keep one knife in grabbing distance just in case, she's as close to relaxed as you'll ever see her as she lets the water warm her.
4. Where can I turn? 'Cause I need something more [oak & iron]
The second way she institutes her begrudgingly obligatory breaks is by going for drinks, on the rare nights that she actually leaves work on time. She favours sitting at the bar, where you can always sit beside her and she'll smile or nod an acknowledgement, but if the bar seats are full and your table isn't she might ask if the seat's free.
The atmosphere is good for her, in short bursts like this—reminiscent of a simpler time, of station bars. She dresses down for comfort and she's got a good handle on her own limits, drinking only enough to loosen up and maybe be just a little bit tipsy but no more. It's during these nights you're most likely to catch an unguarded smile, or a laugh, or a genuine conversation with less of a mask up.
5. Surrounded by uncertainty, I'm so unsure [Wildcard]
She can easily be found on patrols or in the library, too. Hit me or find me in the discord to plot/if you want a custom starter for anything.
liesdontfindyou) & you!What: Catch-All for CT
When: Late September through October
Where: Various places around town
Warnings: Trust issues up the wazoo, nudity in the hot springs prompt, more specific warnings in headers whenever they come up
1. And they'll find out why we don't trust them [enforcer's office]
CT has always been a bit of a workaholic, but over the last few weeks those tendencies have escalated until those working at the Enforcer's office will find they encounter her there at all hours of the day—whether she's strictly meant to be on shift or not. She always gets her actual duties done, but outside of those she's spending a lot of time reading up on anything accessible (sometimes files, sometimes things she's checked out from the library) about the Leeds, the Pine Devil, the Demons, and refreshing her notes on the Cult of Nyarlathotep. She rarely remembers to eat and only seems to drink coffee with any regularity—though the keen eyed might notice her nose crinkling when she does, as if she doesn't really like it—which probably says something about her sleeping habits, too.
It's also impossible not to notice how... chilly, things can be when CT and Cerrit have unavoidable reasons to be in the same room. She avoids his office in a way she didn't used to and all essential communication is run through a third party. By the start of October, many otherworlders on the force will probably have an inkling as to why.
2. Speak up, dear, 'cause I cannot hear you [northwest hollow/around]
Part of CT's daily routine is a run, usually in the morning before she heads into work. It's grounding, a holdover from her life before, and it means she stays familiar with the area. The weather taking a turn for the cooler hasn't changed this whatsoever, nor does the early morning fog.
Even the sudden onsets of rain don't seem to deter her. In fact, more often than not, when the skies open she stops only to turn her face to the heavens and let the rain fall on her for a while.
3. I need to know why we don't trust them [hot springs]
Even CT can't keep going forever—if not for lack of trying. Occasionally, aware of an encroaching crash in a way that's less healthy and more treating herself like a faulty machine that needs troubleshooting measures, she has to take a break of some kind.
One way she does this is taking a trip out to the hot springs. There, she strips out of her practical clothes completely, makes sure they're actually put aside safely, and slips into the water. This is true regardless of if she arrives to an empty spring, or is joining someone in the water—a little nudity means nothing to her after years of co-ed military locker rooms and, though she does keep one knife in grabbing distance just in case, she's as close to relaxed as you'll ever see her as she lets the water warm her.
4. Where can I turn? 'Cause I need something more [oak & iron]
The second way she institutes her begrudgingly obligatory breaks is by going for drinks, on the rare nights that she actually leaves work on time. She favours sitting at the bar, where you can always sit beside her and she'll smile or nod an acknowledgement, but if the bar seats are full and your table isn't she might ask if the seat's free.
The atmosphere is good for her, in short bursts like this—reminiscent of a simpler time, of station bars. She dresses down for comfort and she's got a good handle on her own limits, drinking only enough to loosen up and maybe be just a little bit tipsy but no more. It's during these nights you're most likely to catch an unguarded smile, or a laugh, or a genuine conversation with less of a mask up.
5. Surrounded by uncertainty, I'm so unsure [Wildcard]
She can easily be found on patrols or in the library, too. Hit me or find me in the discord to plot/if you want a custom starter for anything.
no subject
He tilts his head to one side. "Why was Henry so devout a monster hunter? Why was Jasper targeted by a demon? Why did Jonah try to run away from the island? The Leeds' family misfortune was all due to Japhet's greed, and where it led. She didn't choose to be born into this mess."
no subject
"No. But she's made enough choices of her own since."
She's not heartless, but where in another world she would have more true sympathy for Dahlia's situation, here she's planted her feet on the other side of a line she struggles to see a way across.
"And I don't— I don't have a way to know if you're telling me the whole truth, or that you won't let your feelings compromise your position."
no subject
no subject
CT leans against the wall, head in her hands until she drags them up through her hair and lets them fall, gaze back on Cerrit. "Starting to feel like that's all I'm ever going to be. The dented moral compass trying and failing to do anything worthwhile."
It's been a long few years. (It's been a long twenty-five years.) Even in 'death' she hasn't slowed down once. (Can't slow down, doesn't know how to switch off). Nothing she does ever seems to improve things, not for long.
no subject
He sees the stress getting to her, but as he's the cause of much of it, he isn't sure he can help her.
no subject
"I honestly don't know. I— I really don't. I just want to do my part to get to the bottom of this mess and free this town, so we can all go on with our lives and I can get back to making sure my CO doesn't screw humanity into extinction."
It's hard to actually say how much she still wants that, if in part because CT lies to herself just as much as she lies to everyone else. There's little doubt that a part of her wants to finish what she started and, at this point, there's equally little that would truly hold her here.
But she is so very tired.
And still, regardless, she wants to make a difference.
no subject
His desire to do that is also a Thing. Watson hasn't managed to convince him to stay, and they've been avoiding talking about a lot of it since Watson showed up at the Visitor Center.
no subject
CT huffs a breath. "You've got an awful lot of roots growing to pull up to leave again."
But for all of her bitter hurt, the tangled knot of what feels so much like betrayal, she does understand that. Whatever sense of duty or responsibility draws them back to the mess waiting at home.
Only she's resisted letting her roots grow at all.
no subject
He knows she doesn't want to sympathize with him, doesn't want to think of him in the fullness of his complexity. So he's not going to push that pedal any harder.
"Anyway. I've been giving you your space. I'm not going to start ordering you to do things you don't believe in. But I need to know if you can work with me at all."
no subject
Something twists her expression. It's hard to truly say if it's the rhetorical or the material question that does it, or perhaps which does it more.
(Hard not to think of Resol, burning. Towering skyscrapers of glass and metal melting like candle wax. Of her mothers huddled in the midsts of the destruction, or trying to escape. She's always tried to imagine that Keaton finally went home, at the end. That it was only her who'd abandoned them, when for so many years she had been almost content with the knowledge that she would die in the same place she was born.)
"...I can work with you. When needed." There's more cutting ways she could answer, reasons she could give. But she doesn't. The sharp tongue stays sheathed. "I can adapt."
no subject
"Thank you for your time, CT."
no subject
"...I appreciate it." She can say that genuinely, at least. This is still infinitely more bearable than working under the conditions she did before. She's not quite so bitter she can't recognise the difference. "I'll keep in mind what you've said and keep looking into what I can."
She won't ignore information. And she'll take the rest as it comes.