sixthiterationlogs | [closed] smile, the worst is yet to come

Entry tags:

[closed] smile, the worst is yet to come

WHO: Sonny Carisi
WHERE: House 11
WHEN: Forward dated to after the peach tree is discovered (will update with specific date later maybe?)
OPEN TO: Kira Akiyama
WARNINGS: Sonny's slowly enveloping depression and discussion of it

It feels as if the sun is up far to early, but in reality, Sonny's just stayed in bed far too late. Not slept, necessarily, but lay on top a nest of covers watching the crack in the curtains grow brighter and brighter. The moments pass, and he could probably lay here all day long, stubble scratching his cheek and neck, messy hair flopped in front of his eyes. He could lay here all day and wouldn't care, and ultimately, that's what finally pulls him out of bed. He's not blind to the hole he seems to be slipping into. It's daunting to fight it, but he's still doing it.

His morning routine is many hours late, not to mention painstaking, but Sonny drags him through each step of it. Washing his face, getting his teeth as clean as he can, smoothing his hair back, shaving his face. He dresses in overalls because they're the only thing that's clean, and begins to make his way to the inn.

First, he has to round up something to eat, but then he'll go to the church to pray. Praying doesn't seem to make a difference these days either, but he's holding onto his faith like it's all he has, the only thing keeping him afloat.

Between a few houses, back behind the inn, movement catches his eye. A bungalow that was once unoccupied looks like it's being fixed up. Sonny can only assume somebody new has shown up and is figuring out how to get their feet back under them. He likes new people — to because he likes seeing other people trapped here, but because the new ones usually stay determined to get back home for a little while. They're not as jaded. Sonny's not sure when he became one of the jaded ones, but he certainly doesn't like it.

He's nearly to the porch when someone steps outside again, and Sonny finds that it's not someone new at all. He blinks, surprised. "Kira? What're you doing back here?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kira had felt him approach.

That was the more notable part of the day, and he's trying not to frame it like an ugly trade. He isn't even sure how good a thing it is, what might happen to him if the connection holds through another canyon-wide disaster. That low hum of people around him has returned, no stronger than it had been when he arrived, and it's hovered like cicada song all morning, just outside the brick walls of the house he and Veronica had chosen.

All his, now.

Somehow, he's surprised that it's Sonny attached to the feeling. Before Credence lost control, before everyone's powers had been cut short, Sonny had always felt like Christmas. Felt like New York before the epidemic, that last weekend before disaster struck. Lights strung along the streets, people always in groups, bustling under the stress of each mounting sale, but also excited for the end of the year. Maybe it's the way his power is only returned in pieces, maybe it's the way the volume has always been turned down in the canyon, but Sonny feels a lot more muted than before.

"You're not the only one who does community projects," he answers, though he hadn't been expecting to do this one alone. Veronica hasn't been seen since--well since Cougar disappeared as well, and maybe that's for the best somehow. They're worse off without her, but maybe she's better off. Coming down the steps, he's got his boots on despite the heat, in his cut-off shorts trying to make up the difference. Busted furniture sits in the grass beyond the porch, to be evaluated or replaced later. "I'm trying to get this place ready for new people to come through, stock it with some basic maps and supplies, extra room if the inn doesn't work out for them."

Sonny doesn't feel like he does much of anything anymore, let alone any kind of community project. That's not exactly true — he keeps the church tidy, he helps out at the inn, he helps tend to the crops. He still smiles and encourages and reaches out to befriend everyone he's come across, offer a hand wherever it's needed. But it's like he's only going through the motions, the corners of his smile hard and plastic.

That's what he gives Kira now, a half-fake smile the only thing he can really muster. He hates this rut he's stuck in — months ago, he would've jumped at the idea of some kind of starter house for the village, eager to help however it was needed.

"That's a great idea," he says, moving to examine a piece of furniture in the lawn, running a hand over its hideously printed upholstery. "Might give people a softer landing here."

"Wasn't mine," he admits of the idea, "Veronica roped me into trying to keep track of everybody, I'm just--carrying it on, I guess." He shrugs , stretching the strap of his tank, and decides Sonny is as good a reason as any to take a break.

Maybe not with the bottle of booze he found tucked in the cupboards, another box with his name on it, but--water. Conversation.

"Come on inside before you get a splinter," he says, nothing less than a command as he clops his boots up the steps and heads in. "Something's eating you, let's make sure it isn't dehydration." He'd never be so lucky, but a person like Sonny doesn't feel like a sullen dusk bleeding into the horizon because his blood sugar dipped.

"That's good too, though," Sonny says, not looking up from the ugly upholstery pattern that he traces with his fingertips. "It's important to keep carrying on."

Carrying on projects, carrying on ideas, carrying on in general. It's the last one that Sonny's having trouble with lately, even as he actively encourages it in other people. This kind of thing doesn't happen to him — this kind of rut, this kind of hopelessness. He's always had sisters to cheer him on, cheer him up. He's always had a church and a priest to turn to. He's always found ways to look on the bright side, see the silver lining, remember that there are good things in this world.

Kira's a good thing. Maybe spending some time with him will help. Sonny only glances back at the inn once before following Kira inside the house. "I'm staying hydrated," he argues, if only because he doesn't want to acknowledge that Kira knows something's wrong.

Sonny coming across the floor behind him makes him think of Kid. Hooves digging grooves in the wood, little horns butting into the world around her. It's a little like jumping in the river when he hasn't gone swimming since high school--he knows how to keep moving through the house, drifting through the impressions as they come.

Not dehydrated, no. Kira still hunts through the cupboards for glasses, rinsing them once before filling the pair.

Tracking back through the disturbed dust and furniture, he steps over a rolled-up rug and holds the glass out for Sonny. His dark gaze is steady, trained up at his face, and placid as ever. "You're not exactly skulking around my upstairs, but I'd be a shit friend if I didn't let you talk about it," he says. "I'm not saying you have to, just--I'm not stupid, and I do give a shit."

Sonny remembers the day Kira was skulking around the upstairs of the church. He remembers learning about Kira's psychic abilities and how they were suddenly gone. Very distinctly he remembers Kira curling into his side and crying, and Sonny had simply held him and comforted him like any good friend would. Only, at that time, they weren't even really friends. They were somewhere between acquaintances and friends, squinting to find the line and trying to figure out if they should cross it.

They're certainly friends now. Kira even says so himself, which feels like some sort of deciding factor. Sonny takes the water, murmuring his thanks before sipping on it.

"I'm just tired," he says, which isn't untrue, but it isn't everything, either. He looks around the dusty house, gesturing vaguely with the hand holding the water. "Let me know if you want any help with this. I could use a good project."

Kira can count the number of times he's cried here on his fingers: not even his first night, but at the end of the first week; burying Ren; losing Casey; finding Credence, losing his powers.

If he's realistic, in a shitty way, Tim and Sonny are just more people to cry about when something inevitably goes wrong. But his powers are back, Tim hasn't done worse than been a stubborn idiot, and Sonny--Sonny should be okay, but Kira knew from the day he turned up at the church, got a good read on him--he's going to burn out. I'm just tired is the bullshit way of acknowledging it.

"I just told you I'm not stupid," Kira says, folding one arm across his chest as he sips from his own glass. Finishing, he exhales. "But I did say you don't have to talk about it, so, whatever." Looking around the room, he doesn't think moving furniture and getting splinters is going to lighten any of Sonny's load. "Come on, let's go for a walk. There's something I want to see across the wall."

No, Kira isn't stupid. He's perceptive, quick on his feet, always on his toes. He'd probably make a good cop, truthfully. Sonny's not used to hiding how he's feeling, but he'd like to think he's gotten pretty good at it. At the very least, he's good at going undercover, so he's sort of just been treating it like that. Like it's an act instead of a feeling he can't shake, no matter how hard he tries.

Sonny smiles, faint but appreciative. He could talk to Kira, unload his feelings on him, but he doesn't think it'd help. Maybe he'd feel a little relief, opening up to someone, but the feelings would still be there. He'd still feel trapped and helpless.

Maybe he will anyway. At some point.

"Sure," he agrees, moving back towards the door. "I haven't gotten to look around over there yet anyway."

He likes to think that even without his powers, he'd know if something was wrong, but--the truth is, he kind of misses the excuse to not ask. Sonny would act like everything is fine, and Kira would have plausible deniability to believe him, to just let it be. Once he got used to the silence of the world, the opportunity to be selfish had been appreciated.

Now he's watching Sonny duck his smile into his collar, and the room is colder at his back than it should be.

It's fine. He doesn't need Sonny to talk, he just needs to keep him in orbit long enough to build the sense of him, long enough to see if the dam is going to hold. If he can find some good to show him at the same time, aces. "I don't think the earthquake left a good enough path for everyone to rush over, but if Bodhi's managed it, we'll be fine." He leads Sonny out the back of the house, the river just audible beyond the trees, and kicks out of his boots on the steps. "I've never been so tired of a pair of shoes in my life," he sighs, padding out into the summer grass. "One thing I'll say about this place: nobody sane goes barefoot in Manhattan."

The sun is bright and shining down when they step back outside. The trees provide lots of shade, but it's still different from Manhattan's towering buildings, casting shadows over anything and everything. It's hotter here, even without the blacktop soaking up the sun. At least when winter comes, it'll snow. It'll feel a little more like his home.

But when winter comes, he'll have been here for an entire year. God, he's homesick.

"Not if you want to be able to walk afterwards," Sonny agrees. Manhattan is littered with broken glass and discarded trash, used needles and things in the alleyways. You didn't make it far with bare feet. It's safer here, most of the landscape soft grass and hard-packed dirt. Sonny's even gone without shoes a few times himself, in the height of the summer. "I never thought sandals were something I'd miss."

Kira's done a winter here: on the tail end of the worst Manhattan winter he's ever lived, one chained to the other until it felt like six months of snow. Even when it was too hot, he preferred it, and if he must live in this canyon for God knows how long--let him not waste the days he can spend it in shorts, soaking up the sun, finding a new set of fucking trees to look at.

"Come on," he says, slowing to let Sonny draw alongside, catching himself on one foot in a step to tap the other at Sonny's booted ankle. "Live a little. Feel the grass under your toes, or whatever. People have purchased entire web domains to tell the world their pseudoscience about how dirt on your feet cures depression."

Kira can assure them: it fucking doesn't, but it does ground him a bit when he's not already in the mood to sleep for three days.

Sonny wants to point out that he's not depressed, but he doesn't even know if that's the case anymore. He knows the symptoms of it very well, knows what to look out for — it develops a lot in victims. He's probably headed in that direction, but it's a little off-putting to think about. He's always been a reflection of the sun, bright and optimistic. Now, it takes too much to smile.

He pauses, looking down at the heavy boots on his feet. There's probably a million sharp things they can step on between here and the cracked canyon wall. But he shrugs, leaning down to unlace the boots and step out of them and peel off his socks. The grass is soft beneath his soles, the air cool now that they're not confined.

"Alright," he sighs, tossing his boots back in the direction of the porch for safe keeping. "You've got me living a little."

"Cool, now I'm going to get you living a lot, because we're Tom Sawyering it out to some fucking tree they've found." Sonny gets his shoes off, and Kira hunts down the box he left by the firewood, upgraded from future kindling to a kind of basket.

There's still something wrong, something flat to Sonny, but he can't pick the man open and unspool it. If he's honest, he isn't sure he needs to: it isn't entirely different from his first impression of the man, and there's some irony to the bottle that was in the box when he found it, the same thing he'd been drinking the night they met. A different kind of Sonny after a disaster, one who bounced back with cookies and concern.

Whatever this is, it was always beneath it. If they're lucky, Sonny has just burnt out for awhile, and not gone supernova into a collapse. "We're not coming back until this box is full of peaches," he promises.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[closed] smile, the worst is yet to come

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject