ph_logs | If I'm Out of Line, Just Show Me the Door [CLOSED]

If I'm Out of Line, Just Show Me the Door [CLOSED]

Who: Agent South Dakota (

ownperson) & Agent North Dakota (

gooddefense)
What: Unresolved tension boils over
When: Mid-December, pre holidays
Where: North's farm, Northwest Hollow
Warning(s): Excessive alcohol/alcohol abuse, ongoing mental health crises, discussion of betrayal/fratricide by proxy, possible references to past emotional abuse/neglect, others added as necessary

She doesn't mean to get back so late.

One drink turns into two drinks into five into ten and, outside the Oak & Iron's windows, the world turns black and white as night creeps in and snow drifts down from clouds overhead. Midnight is already long behind her by the time the bartender finally cuts her off so they can close up, ushering her out to brave the chill as she curses herself for losing track of time. It's a long walk back from downtown to the farmhouse even on a good day and, between trudging through snowfall and her own drunken clumsiness, this is not a good day. Should've left sooner. Should've been back hours ago. It's just—

Been getting harder and harder to spend time in the house without wanting to scream, the last few days—fuck, the last couple weeks, really. Hours will go by where everything seems okay and then something will happen, something small, something she barely even notices, and everything gets weird again. North gets weird again. But then she doesn't say a word, and, eventually, things go back to normal. Until the cycle repeats. Over and over and over again and—

She just needed to get out of the house. Needed a drink and to clear her head. That's all. That's fucking all.

Her pale skin is red and her hands are shaking as much from the cold as the alcohol, by the time she hauls herself up the porch steps and fumbles with the lock on the door. It's not quiet, it's not considerate. When it finally clicks open, she shoulders the door and stumbles inside, shoving it back shut behind her. Her boots thud heavily against the wooden floor and she grunts, huffing as she fights to get the stupid things off so she can drag herself to bed.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh, good." The relief in his voice is palpable. He practically sighs out the words. "Thanks a ton. If you could tell her that--- that I'm okay too, and I'll call her in a while, I'd appreciate it."

South in her peripheral vision, crowded in on herself like a collapsing star. She aches for both of them. Tries and fails to understand the complex parts that make up a sibling relationship— any familial relationship exceeding a pathetic six years— and can't. But she knows dedication. Knows putting entire worlds before herself— or trying. She also knows selfishness. Lashing out. Harbingering in death she never intended.

"Of course, I'll let her know. And I'll check in with you later, okay? Get some sleep."

"Thanks, boss. Nighty-night." His words are an attempt to seem jovial, but he just can't hack it. Probably for the best that the call cuts out there, both stones fading to dark and going silent.

He's been crying. He's been crying, already, and he's back there all alone with no one to help him and he still sounds so fucking relieved that she's with someone, that she's okay, and she feels fucking horrible for leaving him (he asked her to, he asked her to because he needs this) at the same time as she feels reassured that he cares and— and—

Something cracks. Foundation finally buckling under the strain. The stone goes dark and in the same second South caves in on herself and breaks down in ugly, painful sobs.

For a moment, Carolina isn't entirely sure what to do. Has never prided herself on being good at comforting people, usually just gets by on credentials. Your boss is giving you a pep-talk, so you're obligated to nod your head and pretend to listen sort of thing. It's the kind of crying that makes you wince as a bystander. The crying you can feel; a second-hand pain. A rearranging of nerves, everything tangled up and in the wrong place. Carolina gnaws her lip and picks herself up off the floor, settles herself on the couch beside South.

She doesn't know what to say.

So she doesn't say anything. Just moves one arm to bracket slowly, cautiously (ready to retract if needed), across South's shoulders.

The last time she cried, like this, was about a week after North died (after she killed— after she got him killed). Finally sure that Command wasn't on her tail, wouldn't be catching up to her any time soon, she took a chance on taking up a motel room instead of sleeping rough and without thinking about it, booked a twin room. It was reflex. Just like calling dibs on the better bed was reflex, even to an empty, echoing room.

The realisation had snapped back against her mind like the recoil of a gun and with it shattered the mindset of pure survival that had carried her so far. All that grief and guilt she'd pushed down, tried so fucking hard to convince herself she could ignore, crashed into her like an avalanche, smothering her. Left her sobbing there, on the floor, Delta's chip torn away and thrown across the room so he couldn't keep fucking judging her, couldn't watch her fall to pathetic little pieces.

This feels worse, somehow.

The sobs hurt, wrenching the muscles in her chest and abdomen, tearing up her throat. Tears flow hot down cheeks still frozen by the cold outside, burning the reddened skin. Pain throbs behind her eyes, inside of her skull foggy and aching from exhaustion and the alcohol it's marinated in. It's a whole body agony, violent and all-consuming and she hates it, she hates it, she hates being seen like this, she hates that she can't control it, hates that she's acting like this when he's the one that got hurt and— and—

Her shoulders tense beneath Carolina's arm, but she doesn't jerk away.

She knows it hurts. She knows it's embarrassing. Humiliating. Worse than any flesh wound you could suffer in the field. No injury compares to the wholesale removal of your composure; a head-to-toe skinning that leaves you unprotected and shaking against the cold. Carolina hates crying. If she could, she'd sharpen her nails and remove her own ducts. Pull them out— a thin, fleshy filigree— and crush them under her shoe. Children cry when they break things that can't be put back together again. She's cried for much the same reason, and not once has it felt deserved.

She's bewildered to be an audience to South's crying, for how much of a hypocrite she feels. Why shouldn't South cry? She's a victim to the Program's systemic abuse, to parents who never quite cared enough, to a situation that didn't go the way she planned. Her brother, dead, back again, now probably asking for space— and what a terrifying thing that must be. And drunk on top of everything.

If she were someone different, she might tell her it's okay to cry. But she isn't.

That arm stays put, though, and she feels South heave against her side. Forward, backward, sucking in those painful, whaling breaths. She doesn't shrug her away, which is more than Carolina expects. Her one-armed hold settles into place. Let her cry.

Months of pressurised grief and self-hatred pour from South like a dam bursting, like the ensuing flash flood tearing through the landscape, flattening everything in its path. She is dragged along with the current, unable to fight for more than desperate, pitiful gasps for oxygen that do nothing to make it easier to breathe, nothing to stop the onslaught that threatens to drown her, to choke the life out of her and leave her in the filth.

Hard to say how long it takes for the worst of it to pass. South can neither think nor move for the weight of it. But, eventually, the vicious shaking of her entire body slows to become little more than heaving breaths, rough and rolling but less painful, less overwhelming.

Her face is red and hot and puffy, shining where the streaking tears haven't entirely dried up. Even now, some still dribble from misty eyes, catching in the dip of her lips and tainting her tongue with salt as she all but pants for air. The weight of her sags forward and into Carolina all at once, involuntary.

(Shouldn't be here. Shouldn't be imposing on her, like this.)

"...m'sorry," she murmurs, again, her voice rough and raw. Feels like talking through a throat full of gravel. "S'just— I-I think. If I'm alone, r-right now. Something— something bad'll happen."

She's not sure what. Not really. But something.

Any amount of time could have passed and she'd believe it. Twenty minutes, an hour. She's really only conscious of time as it begins to spill through the window in beams of insipid morning light, bleeding into the floorboards like spilt milk. And anyway, it's the last thing Carolina is focused on. Her attention, never extending far beyond the boundary of the sofa.

In whatever amount of time it takes, South's breathing pulls itself thin, lapping backward and forward like a tide in her spent throat. She isn't gasping anymore. That's good. The body can only take so much before it gives in— throws up— passes out. Unmoored and heavy, South leans into her. Carolina pivots toward her and wraps her up in both arms.

And her gut twists. Something bad.

"I know." A hand at the back of her head. Feels strange. Like she's holding something made of glass. Like she's cupped her hand over an open stomach, keeping all the guts inside. "You won't be alone. You can stay here for however long you want. Really, it isn't an issue. I have the space and I have the food and I want you to be here."

Another flash of tension shoots through her, involuntary, as the encircling arms startle her like a stray animal not used to being touched. It had felt so strange to be hugged by even her own brother, back on that platform, for what must have been the first time in... months? Years? Too long. Too damn long. And if that felt strange, then this feels bizarre. To have the number one wrap her up in steady arms and cup her head like she's some delicate thing that needs protecting, when even now she feels anything but.

(She's a fucking monster. She turned on her own family, on the only person that ever truly loved her without condition. She doesn't deserve any of this. Not the second chance, not the comfort, nothing. Fuck. Fuck.)

And still, she doesn't pull away. Lets her head rest against Carolina's shoulder, tries not to let too much of her weight press into her so they don't fall. Takes a slow breath in, shaky and painful. Releases a deep exhale, stray hairs shaking in the artificial breeze.

I want you to be here, Carolina says, and South has to stop herself from asking why the fuck she'd ever want that. Even her own brother doesn't want her around. (No, that's not right. He even said the opposite. He just... can't be around her, right now. It's just hard for her to see the difference.)

"...I-I keep— I keep hurting him. I-I can't fucking stop. He— he said he just— just needs some time but I don't— I don't fucking know how to stop."

How did she let it get this bad? How can she have spent so long hurting him and not realise? How terrible a fucking person is she that she can't even stop hurting the most important person in her life?

"S-Something— something's wrong with me. Something's really fucking wrong with me."

Some time. Not an unreasonable ask. The smartest thing North could have done for their relationship, really. Pressure builds, heat accumulates and you have an explosion on your hands. You say terrible things, you set each other on fire, and you're left with a steaming pile of ash you can't come back from. North, at least, pushed the pin back in before things went kaput— South's here, asking for help instead of lying in a cold, wet ditch somewhere— and that's a start.

Still. What a feeling, right? You spend your whole life leaning on a pillar you've been chipping and chipping and chipping away at without knowing, and when it crumbles to shit, you're shocked. You can't fathom it; don't remember picking up the tools.

Carolina's hand is sure and her grip is firm. The air around her sweats of South's alcohol.

"You both contributed. It isn't just on you, South. He loves you. He's asking for space, yeah? So, he wants to come back from this. You're both going to have to change some behavior, and that's going to be uncomfortable." Like the drinking. Like thinking in black-and-white. Like North's acquiescence. "It's the way forward. It feels terrible now, but terrible's where you recognize problems."

She's doing it again. The boss-speak. Carolina chews her tongue and draws in a long, slow breath. Her nails sow shallow lines into South's scalp where she scratches hypnotically. "This isn't the end. I promise."

It isn't just on you, what a fucking lie that feels like. Every well-worn grievance she's ever had with him feels like fucking nothing, now, petty and stupid and meaningless. How could any of it stand up to what she's done to him? How is she ever supposed to ask anything of him, after this? How would it ever be fair?

(But Carolina's right about one thing: she needs to change. She just doesn't know how. Doesn't even feel capable.)

Despite herself, despite the urge to kick and bite and scream and stop being so fucking pathetic, the gentle scratch of nails against skin lulls her into a strange state of relaxed tension. Tightly coiled, like the firing mechanism of a gun before the trigger is pulled, and yet still. Unwilling to pull away, to deny herself this no matter how little she feels she deserves it. An inherent contradiction.

"...m-maybe it should be," she murmurs, low and rough and thick with the tears that still refuse to drought. "Y-You don't— you don't get it. I'm fucking broken. Something— something is fucking wrong with me and I don't know how to fix it and he doesn't— he shouldn't— all I can ever fucking be to him is a fucking burden. S'all I've ever been. M'just too selfish to let him fucking go."

Maybe that's what she needs to fix. Maybe she just needs to give him the chance to live without the weight of her around his neck.

"H-He says I'm his favourite person but I don't— I don't know how I could be. I-I don't know how that can be anything but a fucking lie he's told himself to make being stuck with me easier to fucking swallow."

"Don't say that," she says in an unfamiliar manner of soft-firmness; a wave breaking over the rocky shore or a hand firm at the back of the neck. "It isn't, and you aren't broken. You made mistakes. You were selfish. You think differently than he does. Than other people, maybe. If you really were a monster you, wouldn't care how you hurt North. You've seen monsters up close— the Director, the Counselor, they don't care— you aren't like them."

(Both men could fall onto their knees and sob themselves whole puddles and they'd still be monsters.)

It's meditative, sowing tracks back and forth through South's hair. She might not think she deserves it, but she hasn't pulled away, and that means at the very least her body recognizes she needs it. Carolina needs it too, a fact far beyond her own recognition. Every so often she'll tuck a strand of platinum-and-purple hair into place— drop to the base of her neck where little baby hairs spring out thinner than the rest. The closeness is unusual. Almost nostalgic. Something the older girls in school would have done for her when she was at her youngest and still tantrum-prone.

"If you expect everyone to hate you like you do, you can forget it. You've got us all pretty much beat out."

That startles a wet, bitter laugh out of her—an absurd sound to hear come out of herself, feeling the way she does. "W-Well you're right about that part. Guess I-I'm at least good at something."

For as long as she can clearly remember, she's hated herself just as much as she's loved herself—more than, really. Confidence half-truth and yet entirely a lie, built up brick by brick until the wall between her sensitive insides and the cruelty around her was near-impenetrable. Defiance in the face of world that wanted to wear her down into something palatable, easy to swallow, to control. Anger and pride are the only fuels that have ever carried her further than two steps through her life and yet lately they've tasted acrid, poisonous, rotten.

The lie scatters in pieces at her feet, now, in so many pieces it feels impossible to put back together in the shape it used to be. In the shape she used to be.

"...I-I think he thinks I hate him and I don't. I fuckin' don't. I could never— not— not really, not..." Her face scrunches into a tighter knot, holding back fresh tears and trying to clear her head at once. The exhaustion is setting in, even as she steadfastly resists it. "...I don't hate him. I don't hate him."

"I know you don't. I know." She can feel her sagging— sees the morning light creep further and further into the room. Carolina unwinds herself some, looks at her. Tears glitter wetly down South's face. Her eyes are swollen like two bruises that haven't set in yet; her nose, red like a fresh wound. Hair plasters to her pale forehead. It's odd, how a woman so strong can look and feel so small— can sway like something newborn caught in a half-hearted wind. "It's late. Early." She stands and coolly straightens out her pajamas. "We'll call it. Do you want me to stay?"

Edited 2025-12-29 20:51 (UTC)

It takes all the restraint she has not to reach after Carolina when she pulls away, and still her hand twitches traitorously toward her, narrowly missing the hem of her shirt. Pitiful. Like a child. (Fuck how she hates to be seen this way.)

Please. Please, I don't want to be alone. I can't be alone, I can't—

A tight nod is all the answer she can stomach.

"You know, I spent the first, like, three months sleeping on the ground next to my bed, because the mattress was too soft, and I was used to our shitty cots back—" almost says home, replaces it, "—in the Invention. I thought it was nice."

She flattens her pillow, laid out on her back with a blanket draped over her. And it feels so easy, doing all this— weirdly so, like she's slipped back into old armor, old responsibilities— only now she's able to do them right this time. Be a friend, not a Commander. Maybe. If she can figure out how.

"If you need something and I'm asleep, shake me. I won't bite."

Another day, she might have joked: shame. Tonight, she just nods, scrubbing her damp face with the backs of her wrists and heels of her palms until she feels closer to composed (by millimetres, not inches).

Everything feels heavy.

"...couches are kinda the same," she mutters, shuffling herself until she's lying on her side on the too-small space. Usually she'd stretch out, let her legs dangle off over the armrest, but here and now she curls herself up into as small a ball as she can manage. Doesn't even remove her pants for comfort, too damn tired and too damn embarrassed. Just kicks off her boots and then hauls the blanket Carolina gave her up over herself, only the messy fluff of her hair poking out. Like a fresh shell of protection against the world.

Sleep creeps up quickly, dragging her down into the dark, but on her way she murmurs a quiet, emotion-thick, "...thanks," before it claims her completely, weighting her down under exhaustion of every kind.

South staggers into a deep, drunk, exhausted sleep, and Carolina is glad for it. Relieved to hear the even, tear-thickened sound of her snoring. Sleep is the best thing for her now, and clearly she needs it.

Carolina winds herself down by thinking in circles— no, in rows— about what's next, where she's going to put the alcohol, if it's an amount that warrants hiding, and how she'll approach North once she's up again. More demanding of her attention is the palpable whiplash of seeing South come apart— South in her house— South, asleep on her sofa, putting so much trust in her, and in such a small amount of time. Carolina lies in the recoil like shallow water. Parses the especial, bizarre sort of feeling of seeing someone cry for the first time, like attending a funeral you weren't invited to. And the closer she gets to sleep, the less whole these thoughts become. She's left with one; I'm sorry.

Her body's clock (stupid, disciplined thing) wakes her up a cruel three hours after she's fallen asleep. Carolina wastes no time. She cleans up her bedding, gets dressed, stashes her small collection of alcohol in a corner in the basement, then makes for North's house with breakfast.

And— gets precisely nowhere. He raises a good point— needs someone to talk to who isn't literally housing his sister– but Carolina leaves frustrated and helpless anyway. Were she still living by herself, she might have bowled through the front door, wrapped her knuckles in tape and b-lined to the yard for some noisy exercise. Not now. South is probably sleeping, and waking her up prematurely is the last thing she wants.

So, she creeps quietly through the front door—

Sleep comes heavily, and yet uncomfortably. Beneath the shelter of the blanket her features wrinkle, her body curls in tighter like she's trying to retreat inside that shell where no one will ever have to see her again. Never does she shift or roll, never does she really stir, exhaustion weight enough to keep her there, and yet sometimes she feels close to the surface, like she's stuck beneath an iced over lake.

Nightmares try to reach her in fits and spurts, vivid in the way the alcohol has always made them but struggling to get a foothold. A flash of North screaming her name. A flash of blood and fear. A flash of snow and pain. A flash of emptiness and abstract things that somehow she knows mean that she is and will always be alone.

It's the sound of footsteps returning that jolts her out of a fitful stretch of barely-sleep, makes her snoring sputter and stop, the blanket mound shift. Alcohol still drowning her system, she moves sluggish and slow, head aching and memory a bit of a blur. Where did North go, why is he coming back in at whatever hour this is, what—

She opens her eyes, and she remembers.

Oh. Right. He... he's not here. Or, she's not there.

Her chest squeezes and she's overcome with a wash of shameful embarrassment. God, what the fuck, why did she come here? Why would she make poor fucking Lina deal with her like this, why would she let herself be seen like that, why—

I didn't know where else to go, she finds herself thinking, and feeling absurd for it.

"...h-hey," she grunts, still groggy where she pulls herself to sitting, blanket bunched over her legs. "Where the fuck—?"

"Hey. Morning. You're at mine, remember?"

Carolina stops in the doorway, as if to make the shape of herself known. Give South enough time to look, put the pieces together, remember where the hell she is. She'll give her a recap if she needs it, not that she really wants to. Humiliating people for sport is only best when she's in a certain mood— and not when that person is in deep emotional crisis. When it's clear that Carolina is Carolina, she strips off her winter coat and gloves and begins to move toward the kitchen.

"I'll make something. If you promise not to throw it up. And don't say no. I haven't eaten either, so it's gonna get made anyway."

"...dunno if I can promise that," she groans, rubbing her face. Ugh, the fact she still gets anything resembling a hangover after this much practice is bullshit. (Though maybe this morning it's as much of an emotional hangover as it is an alcoholic one.) "But I guess I'll fuckin' try."

Should eat. Knows she should eat. Even if the idea sets her stomach on edge already. God, she's fucking pathetic, sticking Carolina of all people with having to cook for her.

She pulls her knees to her chest without conscious thought, arms wrapped around them over the comforting weight and warmth of the blanket.

"...where were you?"

At least she's got hardwood floors.

"I was at North's," she says unflinchingly. If this— any of this— is going to work, she can't lie. South deserves more than lies. They've dealt with enough of them back home. Let her be spoken to like an adult human being, not like a child who can't handle them. In this particular instance, though, it might not be wise to tell the whole truth. She remembers South's concern that her brother should have someone, anyone to talk to— and that's not going to be her.

Carolina sets to cooking somewhat automatically, the way she might service a gun. Pan, butter, eggs. It's the easiest way she's found to get through this sort of thing— machining her way through it.

"I wasn't there long. I brought him something to eat and told him if he needs to talk, I'm around."

That way, it's not technically a lie.

Carolina may not flinch, but South does, a reflexive twinge of guilt just thinking about the sound of old tears in his voice and how alone she's left him (he asked her to, he asked her to but it feels so wrong). It fades into a stranger, more complicated feeling as she processes that Carolina did what she'd asked her to—tried, at least, to give North this (confusing, inexplicable) support she's been giving her...

And shifts again when it becomes clear it didn't fucking work. Probably he shut down on her and Carolina's being polite, trying not to make South frustrated with him—something she has no right to be, and tries to push down. Because why would anything be that simple, right?

"...but he didn't talk," she grumbles, chin against her knees, now. "H-How the fuck is anything meant to change if he won't—"

Ugh, stop. Stop. She doesn't get to feel like this. It's not fucking fair, it's not right, it's not—

She buries her face in her knees and breathes deep, willing herself calmer.

"It did just happen last night. He might need time before he's ready to get into everything. Whatever change happens, it's going to be slow for both of you. Be prepared for that."

Butter sizzles and froths in the shallow basin of her pan. She cracks two eggs and lets them do their thing, spoons coffee into her drip maker. Quiet for a moment, Carolina picks through her words. There's a dark blotch in her understanding of things, and she'll be no help to anyone if she's missing important information. If South will actually tell her, well...

Then there's the issue of whether her story is accurate. She'll work with what she's given.

"If I'm going to help, it's probably best I know the full story. We'll eat first, then talk. Is that fine?"

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