MARCH UPDATE

5’8” height

every night i burn, dream the black crow dream

awards

4,382 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @lulu

POSTED ON Jun 10, 2021 3:01:04 GMT

chryssa glasgow likes this

Lulu had seen the mist, but she hadn’t considered that it was what had caused her to go on her spree. She’d been so hyper-focused on it being her own internal problem that she hadn’t thought to look at her surroundings.

So… maybe she wasn’t crazy, after all?

The mist had a funny way of existing all around her without question, sort of like air—only suffocating, and blinding, and deadly. It was only the piercing, direct questions like these which finally grasped her, like a hand through the fog finally waving inches before her face. Hello? Saoirse? Anyone home?

There were heavily conflicted feelings. Only in that moment, hazy from the quickening descent into what would surely be a black-out abyss, did more pieces come together with magnetic force.

It gutted her.

She saw her heart on the table, beating, beat. She wanted to pull it apart herself in her hands, artery from artery, and throw her own remains across the room.

Trust no one.

“No. I mean. I don’t know.”

“I don’t know what any of this means.”

“I don’t even know if I should be here, Cil.” A fingernail dug into ungiving glass. “Should I leave the region?”

“Should I just disappear?”

Cillian Quinn

close tab

played by

thorn

Gavin Merlino

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

the harbinger

underboss

6'3" height

creatures of habit, carrion flowers, growing from repeated crimes.

awards

7,863 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Jun 10, 2021 3:25:26 GMT

"No," Gavin says. Sharp, certain. Repeats, "No."

I can't lose you again.

It would be the wrong thing to say, and he bites his tongue. Measures his response with careful breaths. He grips her arm in a grounding gesture.

"You're safest here, in Hoenn. In Rocket, with me."

What was it he always said? We look out for our own. It was time to prove that. Silph was the enemy.

"But you should definitely be more careful. We need to figure out what he knows about you, what he doesn't. Does he know where you live? Your name, your alias?"

She's drunk, and he's bombarding her with questions. He catches himself.

"We don't have to figure this all out tonight. Fuck, figuring out there's a problem at all is a good first step. Maybe stay on the submarine for a bit, somewhere he can't find you. How quick are the memories coming back?"

close tab

played by

mad

saoirse quinn

she/her

twenty-eight

october 27th

circhester, galar

bisexual

physicist / inventor

executive

5’8” height

every night i burn, dream the black crow dream

awards

4,382 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @lulu

POSTED ON Jun 10, 2021 4:09:03 GMT

There was an impactful shift. All her life, she’d felt expendable. Now, in this moment, where everything was imploding around her, she was decisively claimed. She was a Quinn. Rocket was her family.

It was all she knew, and all she would ever know. It was the only thing solid she could find to stand on.

In moments, the chasm grew, separating her from her second love. All truths and lies fell into the abyss.

How quick were the memories coming back? As to imply there were more to come? That made sense. The gravity of her situation drug her down. Her reality swelled, and she found herself overwhelmed by it. She reached for yet another cigarette, but this time, she struggled with the lighter as she spoke.

“I don’t know.” Scritch, scritch. “I didn’t even really—” finally, a flame whooshed, and smoke clouded, “mm, I didn’t know they were memories for a while, since that first time.” Big sigh. “My dreams haven’t been normal lately, and I would know.” She'd been around.

“I don’t really even… sleep that much, but, when I do, it’s like I stand from the outside of them now—” She angled her hands in a gesture as though it might help. “And I’m looking down on myself—kind of, but not. ^Anyways, Darkrai is always there, and I know, cause if I look up, it’s always like this swirling nightmare sky—real creepy shit—no matter what the dream is.” She stared, glossy eyes wavering a bit.

“And, like I said, I’m not having my regular dreams, since avatarship, and I just have this feeling that… they’re memories; not dreams. And that Darkrai’s been showing me things.”

“Cillian, I just thought I was being paranoid.”

Cillian Quinn

close tab

played by

thorn

Gavin Merlino

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

the harbinger

underboss

6'3" height

creatures of habit, carrion flowers, growing from repeated crimes.

awards

7,863 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Jun 10, 2021 11:47:03 GMT

Gavin listens, amber gaze held intense on his sister.

Her dreams sound terrifying. Like nightmares, which he supposes is fitting.

"I don't think you're being paranoid."

Which was absolutely fucking rich, coming from him.

"I think you're in over your head, but that's OK. We're gonna figure this shit out. Is there anyone else you think you can trust?"

close tab

played by

mad

saoirse quinn

she/her

twenty-eight

october 27th

circhester, galar

bisexual

physicist / inventor

executive

5’8” height

every night i burn, dream the black crow dream

awards

4,382 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @lulu

POSTED ON Jun 10, 2021 12:08:11 GMT

In such a situation, the assurance that she wasn’t being paranoid was all the more terrifying, especially coming from the one person who might have been able to talk her down—not that this was the time to do so.

Lulu guffawed.

“Trust.”

“Yeah. No. Not even my bloody fucking self.” Lungs guzzled on chemicals and destruction, insatiable. Her vision frayed far deeper than her overworked eyelids.

Cillian Quinn

close tab

played by

thorn

Gavin Merlino

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

the harbinger

underboss

6'3" height

creatures of habit, carrion flowers, growing from repeated crimes.

awards

7,863 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Jun 10, 2021 12:23:09 GMT

He remembers how it had felt to trust no one.

It had been at its worst, he recalls, after he'd tried to kill THEO BECKETT. How his trust in the other had been so uncertain and fragile, and how his trust in himself had been entirely shattered by the realization that he should have died.

"Then trust me."

He reaches for the hand not holding her cigarette, clasps it in both of his own.

"I know shit's been rough with us, but I'd kill for you."

He will, if it comes to it.

close tab

played by

mad

saoirse quinn

she/her

twenty-eight

october 27th

circhester, galar

bisexual

physicist / inventor

executive

5’8” height

every night i burn, dream the black crow dream

awards

4,382 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @lulu

POSTED ON Jun 10, 2021 13:04:09 GMT

Her brow furrowed even further, if it was possible. She jerked away when held her hand. This was more unfamiliarity and discomfort on top of an already confusing situation.

She wanted to refuse him, altogether, at first.

“I don’t want you to risk yourself because of my mistakes.” Not that she wouldn’t do the same for him in a heartbeat.

Her previously free hand was hidden, pressed between the bone of her knees so that it could not be grabbed again. She slouched against the counter, propped ever-lower on an elbow. A smoking hand spun her glass.

“If Walsh tells you to kill me, I want you to do it. I mean… not anyone else. Just you.”

As much as she suspected him, Walsh was inescapable. Lulu believed them to be connected somehow, through Darkrai.

Cillian Quinn

close tab

played by

thorn

Gavin Merlino

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

the harbinger

underboss

6'3" height

creatures of habit, carrion flowers, growing from repeated crimes.

awards

7,863 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Jun 10, 2021 15:08:17 GMT

She jerks her hand back, and Gavin understands.

It's not familiar to them. Until recently, it hadn't been familiar to him. Only in allowing others to get close has he learned the comforts of touch, how much he craved it.

He doesn't reach out again, retracts his touch as if to reassure.

He opens his mouth to argue, then closes it at the mention of Walsh.

That was it, wasn't it? The elephant in the room. The reason he'd never wanted her to join Rocket, because he'd known what it might mean. He is sworn and beholden to them, and if Walsh ordered their deaths...

Well, she'd seen it, hadn't she? In his dreams.

He doesn't make false promises of their invincibility.

"I swear." A solemn oath. "Will you promise the same?"

close tab

played by

mad

saoirse quinn

she/her

twenty-eight

october 27th

circhester, galar

bisexual

physicist / inventor

executive

5’8” height

every night i burn, dream the black crow dream

awards

4,382 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @lulu

POSTED ON Jun 11, 2021 5:20:28 GMT

Cillian Quinn likes this

Lulu had learned her worth, or lack-thereof, long before Rocket. At home, in Circhester; in the mafia, and then in prison. This was why Gavin's dreams hadn’t shocked her; hadn’t rattled her to the core. They had not been a surprise. Such was the way of this life she could not leave any other way.

Self-pity had rotted and been tossed out years ago. She’d learned to accept things. If she died, she died. She would lie in the coffin she’d carved.

Though she didn’t quite remember yet, this was why she had faced FERNANDO SILPH that day months prior, at their regular bar, after he’d revealed knowledge of her true identity. There were only so many ways life could end for her. She didn’t want to run anymore, and she didn’t want to be caged. She’d rather die than either.

But, for Cillian Quinn ’s life, she’d run to the ends of the earth, alone—to fade into nothing.

Attempting to relate to her brother had taken up so much of her time and energy that, aside from psychics, all she had known was to hope and do what she could to be tool for his preservation; because, as their parents had instilled in both of them, Cillian had important things to offer the world.

Rocket’s silver lining had been that they had put value on her own mind and hands, for the first time, beyond crime. She, too, could be a real scientist, just like him.

So, it cut even deeper that again, she had messed up. She had, while unknowingly, betrayed them.

Before Hoenn, death had been breathing down her neck, after a made-family falsely believed her to be a snitch from her fallout. Now, the worst stigma of them all, the one which she had run from, lingered on the threshold of truth. Her value dwindled, even evermore to herself.

Her loyalty.

Her strongest trait.

After all this, she had failed him. She had failed them all.

Emotions never before felt seethed, while, simultaneously, everything boiled down to nothing. A void, even Darkrai did not hover over.

Nothing.

She didn’t blink at her reflection in the glass as she looked into it. “Yes. I promise.”

“But we both know that’s not how it’s going to end.”

There was a sniff.

Suddenly, she turned, wrapped her arms around him tightly and pulled him close, physical strength crushing where the mind crippled weakly. She attempted to hold back the tear which fell onto his shoulder.

“I love you, Cillian.”

Cillian Quinn

close tab

played by

thorn

Gavin Merlino

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

the harbinger

underboss

6'3" height

creatures of habit, carrion flowers, growing from repeated crimes.

awards

7,863 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Jun 11, 2021 14:01:55 GMT

They've not been raised to hug.

They've not been raised to cry.

They've not been raised for warmth, yet when Lulu Flint wraps her arms around him, Gavin feels not the disgust instilled in him by their father but the crippling, overwhelming affection of a brother who would move mountains to keep her safe.

He folds her into his arms without hesitation.

"I love you, too."

He sheds no tears, but there's a tightness to his voice she'll recognize if only because it is foreign, because they've never allowed themselves to fall apart around each other.

"We're going to do whatever we can to fix this. You're not gonna compromise Rocket. You're bloody brilliant, Saoirse, Walsh would be a fool to sacrifice your mind for anything less than absolute treason. And you wouldn't betray me, I know you wouldn't."

His grip tightens around her.

"Not even if Silph's fucking with your head."

close tab

played by

mad

saoirse quinn

she/her

twenty-eight

october 27th

circhester, galar

bisexual

physicist / inventor

executive

5’8” height

every night i burn, dream the black crow dream

awards

4,382 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @lulu

POSTED ON Jun 11, 2021 23:30:13 GMT

I love you, too.

The words had never been spoken. It had been almost twenty-six years. The second tear fell. The world shifted.

Darkrai watched from a shadow within the room; a witness to everything these days.

Cillian’s voice was new. It was Cillian Quinn , but also a part of the Underboss she had been unfamiliar with. She had been unfamiliar with this man, in general.

But there was familiarity in their embrace, even if it had never been a prior experience.

Family.

A wisp of hope in a void.

Her cigarette burned, almost dropping its damage before she relieved it into the tray and took its last breath, then stamping it out around his shoulder with a stifling huff.

She pushed from him, lightly, straightening to look at him with matching eyes.

“What now?”

Cillian Quinn

close tab

played by

thorn

Gavin Merlino

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

the harbinger

underboss

6'3" height

creatures of habit, carrion flowers, growing from repeated crimes.

awards

7,863 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Jun 12, 2021 5:19:28 GMT

However brief, the moment defines them both.

She retracts, and Gavin leans back to afford her space. Matching amber eyes care not for the distance between them; they will be inseparable.

"For now? Relax, breathe."

She's way too drunk to deal with this properly.

"You can crash here tonight if you want. I've got a spare room. Then we'll figure out a game plan to keep you away from Silph."

close tab

played by

mad

saoirse quinn

she/her

twenty-eight

october 27th

circhester, galar

bisexual

physicist / inventor

executive

5’8” height

every night i burn, dream the black crow dream

awards

4,382 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @lulu