005: The sun was up. I saw a sea of blue, but it was night in my heart for you.

[payingfordeliverance]

Who: Break + various
What: Catchall log; closed starters, event things, etc. No open prompts.
When: Starting end of May, through June and into the summertime
Where: Various

Content Warnings: Eye injuries and PTSD to start with; will add further warnings as necessary as I add more threads.

Comments

End of May: White Alice Aftermath

[payingfordeliverance]

Break's injury heals over much faster, this time. Almost immediately after Ange visits, in fact, which is strange. He blames it on his Sleeper blood, which he's noticed helps him feel better rested in a short amount of time and eases various battle aches he'd expect to linger for days in a matter of hours. But Sleeper blood doesn't fix horrible memories, can't erase a resurgence of old nightmares about thin, pointed fingers suddenly coming at your face, and it also doesn't stop your large gaggle of concerned children from teaming up to order you to rest, rest, rest whenever you go out to try and train or pop into the kitchen to do some baking.

To that end, Break finds himself with a lot of time on his hands, in the days following the wound.

That he does actually cooperate is a cause for concern. A healthy, uncorrupted Break should be behaving as though resting is his idea alone and being very cheerful about obnoxiously making people bring him things, or shooing them off when he truly wants to settle down. That's assuming he even does want to at all, which he often doesn't. Instead, in the first few days after White Alice's rampage, he meets most urging to take it easy with a vague "oh" and does indeed spend a great deal of time in bed, forgetting to eat unless someone brings him something and half-watching comfort movies on his omni. A hammock is installed out back at the edge of the patio, and he often winds up there where he can enjoy the fresh air and improving weather, a book he isn't really focusing on open on his chest as he watches the sky. And sometimes, most damningly, he spends hours curled in his favorite window seat in the house, staring at nothing, with a cup of stone cold tea forgotten in his hands.

It's just so much. He can feel Alice and her sorrow on the other end of their bond, and can't bring himself to reach out. Break believes he failed her, in being unable to use that bond to bring her back. But at the same time, he remembers so many awful things, and it takes so much effort simply to stop himself from rubbing at his new eye. The weight of it all is enough to keep him still and quiet, and always a little stuck somewhere in the past.

Fortunately, the remedy for Break's corruption in particular is simply attention from the people who love him, so he never sinks into it any further. Once he's had some time with people bringing him snacks and books and joining him for movies or even simply curling up with him for a nap, Break starts to perk up. He gets surly about being denied his kitchen time and sneaks away through the lamp to bake at the Clockhouse instead out of spite; his hammock dozes turn into making messes in their sorry excuse for a garden, and he gets back to his usual sword training early in the morning when, in theory, no one else will be awake to fuss at him. As for White Alice, of course they sort themselves out eventually. They've become far too close in this world to simply shatter. It's only that Break needs time to work himself out of his memories.

Everyone will know they've made up when they are caught darkblooding a thorn hedge into existence around the house outside, covering it in very strange roses. Sleeping Beauty is their favorite of the princess movies, you see.

[velvet_teen]

The clown needs to be watered, he's wilting all over the place. Being responsible is so difficult, how fortunate that Alice is up to the task. This has been absolute piss for everybody but she recognizes that only one person got their eyeball ripped out in reverse for it. Obviously she is directing the bulk of her service towards her sister but the sister cares for the clown and perhaps he has some positive attributes in his own right that she might possibly acknowledge!

"If the other Alice can beat you up and then I'm stronger than her that means I'm twice as strong as you," she informs him pompously while bringing him tea and biscuits in bed. "Since you have become a soggy weak string cheese, it is only right that I nurture you. Be grateful!"

She's rudely pointing at him and also has one foot hiked up on the bedframe in what we must call the sea captain stance. We said might possibly acknowledge. Might.

[payingfordeliverance]

Break had been poking around at his omni, having decision paralysis about comfort movies, when Alice arrived. For a long while after her ranting concludes, he simply stares at her from within his large pile of pillows. This is annoying? This is annoying, on principle. Given all the horrid memories he's been dealing with and the icky sensation of his new eye existing in his skull, Break is not in the mood to be sassed, and some part of his mind is vaguely turning over the notion of scruffing the girl and chucking her out his nice second floor window.

...on the other hand it does not escape his attention that he is witnessing character growth in action, here. The last time this Alice decided to visit him while he was ill, she came rampaging in with the rest of the kids hot on her heels in an attempt to stop her, declaring joyfully that she had come to put Break out of his misery. Nurturing, nurturing...yes, this is something that is very different indeed.

Break is a little touched, honestly.

And also it means his casual manipulations over these past several months, getting her to help him with this and that by pretending to be some flavor of helpless without her, has been working. This is personally satisfying and also he would like the tea she is currently in control of actually, so Break decides he will not toss her out the window. Baltus breaks the long silence by politely turning a horrible doggish laugh into a sneeze.

"...ehhhhhhhh, what a terrible pronouncement," Break says at last. "So, I have become the depressing disappointment one comes across in the wee hours, when hunting for a snack to eat directly out of the icebox."

[velvet_teen]

They're both darkbloods, anyway. He could chuck her out the window but she would only cling to the outside and hiss at him like a spectral horror and save him the trouble of selecting a movie. The other Alice and Reaper could come in and make a pillow fort and watch her make faces for 90 minutes.

In the current reality in which nobody has been flung through a window (yet...?), Alice presents him with the cup and saucer and attempts to fluff his pillows at for him.

"Even if you are half peeled and moldy in the insides you aren't a real cheese and we can put you to rights. You are very disappointing, though."

She then gives him a look which one might recognize as the look Alice has when she thinks she is being quite cunning and subtle and has managed to connect point A to point B.

"The best movie I have seen is about a wormy peach. It is not entirely awful to be a sad sort of snack as long as you can grow from it."

Given the movie in question, whether she means metaphorical or literal growth into a giant peach is a question for later and may never be answered.

[payingfordeliverance]

There is just so much love happening in this room.

Break holds his tea and saucer carefully steady as Alice commits violence upon his bed, wondering vaguely if she has already attempted to sugar it for him and, if so, whether that is a good or bad thing. When she drops this latest nugget of wisdom on him, though, he pauses to stare at her in abject bafflement.

"...there is a whole movie about a wormy peach...?" he asks, incredulous. More importantly: "And you actually sat through it?"

There has to be more to it than that.

[velvet_teen]

She is aware that Break likes lots of sugar. What she interprets as 'lots' is not consistent from day to day.

"I slept through parts of it, but I liked it so much I watched the whole thing again later."

This is an astounding feat for Alice's whole attention span deal. She attempts to sweeten the deal, much as she has sweetened the teacup.

"There are pirates. Proper skeletal pirates."

She does not mention the requisite eyeball gag that inevitably comes along with skeletal pirates. This is Alice being thoughtless rather than deliberately omitting this content, however. She has, to be honest, completely forgotten that this is a thing that might reasonably bother a guy who keeps getting eyeballs shoved in and out of him. This is the double edged blade of existing around a person who prefers to focus on the aspects of life that she finds pleasant.

[payingfordeliverance]

Alice does not manage to legitimately manipulate Xerxes Break often, but she is doing so now. Proper skeletal pirates are indeed a big plus in a movie, and they must be truly great ones if they got this girl of all people to watch it again, on purpose. More importantly, he finds himself deeply curious as to what they might have to do with a wormy peach.

Break is aware that this is happening, is his problem. So, as far as he sees it now, he has two choices. He can ask her for the name of the movie with the goal to watch it by himself, which will no doubt result in being horribly taunted because Alice knows something he does not. Or, he could be more open about admitting that he would like to see it, and deal with...probably milder gloating? Probably.

Since she's basically won at this point anyway and she did bring him tea and snacks, Break decides, generously, that Alice can have a little victory, as a treat.

"We could, ah." He fidgets all the same, and stalls for time with a sip of his tea. Ah. She did sugar it. Fine. "...watch it. Perhaps."

later; on the day of the jessica confrontration, when ruby and ange come over to stay for a while

[entreats]

It's not like it's still directly after the confrontation Ange had.

After all, after storming away from Jessica's room, Ange had to first find Ruby, before the other decided that it might be better to take Ange somewhere else for a little while. Even contacting Break and deciding which of their things to take with them for a temporary stay somewhere else had taken time - which means that, technically speaking, Ange's heart ought to have had some time to calm down now.

And yet it doesn't feel like it. It feels like her mood is still exactly the same as the moment she stormed out of that room. Everything about her body and her emotions feels so tense, like she's a string pulled taut, about to snap at any moment. Her throat and chest both feel tight, making it hard to breathe the more she thinks about Jessica's face, about those words the other told her.

But what does she do with those emotions? It feels like they won't leave her, no matter what she does. Should she get angry? Should she cry? After having been left alone in a room inside of the house for a few moments, Ange decides that none of it helps to do anything about the feeling that haunts her.

(The feeling of a trauma being reignited so strongly that a blaze rages through Ange's mind, but she doesn't quite consciously realise that's it.)

So she should instead do other things. Maybe there are smaller things bothering her right now that she can do something about.

It's why she slips out of the guest room she and Ruby have left their stuff in, moving to try and find Break without running into any of the other people living in the house - because she doesn't want to have to explain why the whites of her eyes are red from crying.

Thankfully fate seems to be relatively merciful on her today, and there are no awkward run-ins before she manages to find the man in the house that is - thankfully - not completely unfamiliar to her at this point.

"I--" Ange starts, but then stops. What does she say? It'll be the first words she's exchanged with him, since it was Ruby who arranged for them to be able to come here in the first place. Ange isn't even sure just how much the other girl explained to Break. Probably nothing with too many details, wanting to protect Ange's feelings. But that just makes it even harder to think of where to start with any of this mess.

".. sorry," she seems to settle on after a moment, hanging her head like a scolded child.

Right. This is what she wanted to do. Even if she can't do anything about the main thing bothering her, she can at least take a smaller weight off her shoulders by at least saying this, so she doesn't have to worry about it as well. "If this is.. a bad time to be intruding, I mean."

After all, it hasn't been too long since the entire thing with one of the Alices happened. Who knows if the house - let alone Break - is in the right mindset to be able to tolerate two guests well on top of it, especially with Ange looking very much like an obvious emotional mess in this moment as she's standing in front of the man. And even if the way she's currently looking wouldn't do the trick, then her strangely meek attitude would say enough about the way she is currently feeling, considering that usually only rears its head when she is feeling her most vulnerable.

[payingfordeliverance]

Truthfully, Break is -- well, pleased is not the correct word at all. But the arrival of Ruby and Ange in particular means there is this and that to be done that Break simply won't leave to anyone else to handle, and so now he has little tasks to do that mean something and honestly it makes him feel better. Life is so unnerving for a servant who's not serving, and while Break has certainly needed the rest after his ordeal, having an actual reason to be up and about feels more like relief than anything else.

To that end, Ange runs across him while he's hunting down wandering closets, looking for one that might give him some spare fluffy bath towels for the girls. The house itself seems to agree that he could use the quest, because it keeps giving him the same broom closet in different locations.

He nearly gives one of his usual silly greetings when she approaches him, less because he's feeling chipper himself and more because if things are bad enough that Ruby felt the need to remove her from the Clockhouse, she could probably use one. Her tone and her body language cut him off short. Break is aware, by now, that Ange is someone who does her best to look cool at all times, and it takes a great deal to rattle her out of that. But for her to turn up looking as though she's done wrong in coming to him for help, hm, hm.

It's worse than he thought, and Break hates this intensely.

Despite his outward grumbling, he isn't shy about showing physical affection and never has been. Typically he keeps it to little arm touches and the odd hair ruffle and lets Baltus do the real cuddling, but Baltus is such a snuggly creature for a reason. Given that his omen is currently elsewhere, probably patrolling the grounds, it's Break's job this time. Driven by the same compulsion that used to lead him to be especially sweet to Sharon sometimes, usually a reaction to someone else hurting her, he reaches to wrap an arm around Ange's shoulders and pull her close in a true one-sided hug.

"If it's you, it's not an intrusion," he says simply.

In her current state, he has no idea what her reaction will be. He's prepared for her to burst into tears on him, or to squawk and squirm away and scold him for being embarrassing. As with most things, Break isn't sorry either way. Ange is someone who cares enough to sit and hold his hand in the middle of dank underground catacombs. Later, it will matter that now, Break is reaching for her in turn.

[entreats]

Maybe even Ange isn't too sure what sort of reaction she was expecting from Break upon saying that. Or even if she was expecting something, it wasn't quite this. She is very much used to Baltus giving her tons of physical affection, but despite knowing that Baltus is like an extension of Break himself, it still feels different when it happens that way. Baltus is like a safe buffer, where Ange can pretend she's just hugging or cuddling with a noodly and weirdly cute dog, rather than the person Baltus is part of.

But this is different. Break is comforting her himself this time, directly, and it makes Ange's initial instinct go towards the latter of those two possibilities. A part of her, the flustered part, wants to huff about it and pretend like she doesn't need this.

Right now, however.. The emotion is too strong. Even though a part of Ange can acknowledge her cousin's actions and the reasons she must have for them, there's a part of her, the child left behind in her heart, that can't help but feel hurt. Abandoned. And when she's then suddenly pulled close and hugged by someone she cares for, and being told that of all things..

It breaks the dam. Rather than pushing him away or moving away herself, Ange instead moves into the contact. Her arms move around Break's torso, clinging to him with a force that suggests she's clinging onto him for dear life, and Ange's shoulders slowly start to move up and down with short, erratic movements, very much showing that she's crying even before the soft sobbing sounds start to leave her, or before she's starting to wet his shirt with the tears on the face she has pressed entirely up against him.

There's nothing she can do in the face of acceptance at just the right moment than to cry.

Though it doesn't seem like the usual Ange is totally gone, even in this moment. Despite the way she's still clinging to Break and crying right against him, there's a muffled cry of, "God, I'm so stupid..!"

Maybe she's realising how dumb it must look - or how dumb it seems to her, anyway - to be crying all over Break like she's some small child in a much older body, but at the same time Ange absolutely can't hold back these tears when she's already been crying so much today.

[payingfordeliverance]

It's weird, the ways that Ange really does make Break think of Sharon sometimes. Not because they themselves are alike -- they'd get along well, Break is certain, but the explosions that live within Sharon's personality are exactly the sort of thing that would send Ange into an overwhelmed fluster from time to time. Rather, Break supposes, it's the way he can't help but feel like his history with Ange is long and deep in a way he's only ever experienced with Sharon, despite the fact that he and Ange haven't even known one another a full year.

Certainly the intense hurts that they share in such an uncanny way contribute to that. Mostly, though, what Break remembers as Ange latches on to him for comfort now is the upset little girl who once ran to him with her arms outstretched, not at all cool enough yet to not wish to be scooped up and coddled. Even if it was only for a single winter's day, he can't help but feel that he's seen Ange grow up, even as he's well aware that there's still so much of her story he has no inkling of. The way she existed in the dreamworld before, too -- easygoing and happy, healed, even as he was still able to fluster her so wonderfully.

He remembers Sharon when she was tiny, sidling up to her interesting new big brother with her hands full of flowers, totally unaware of what it would mean that she wanted to give him something so useless to him simply because she herself thought them lovely and wished to cheer him up. He remembers her collapsing on his chest in tears just like this, anguished at her inability to keep up in times of danger, only to turn right around not all that much later and declare that what her life gave her in return for what she gave up would depend on her own strength.

His hand lifts to stroke Ange's hair, gently.

"And why is that?" he asks. "Because someone else made a choice to hurt you? If I or Miss Ruby or anyone else you care for expressed such a sentiment, you'd never stand for it, you know."

[entreats]

He's right.

He's absolutely right with that statement, and Ange - even in her current state - knows it. If it was Ruby or Break in her position, then she'd straight up tell them to never forgive the other person, or to even threaten to personally go beat that person up for their sake. Even in more nuanced issues, Ange can't help but always be firmly in the camp of the people she cares about, after all. She would tell them to never blame themselves for another person's hurtful actions.

But Break being so right in this moment is almost annoying, because it makes it feel worse to continue down the same line of thought as a moment ago, even though she can't help it at the same time. Because she does feel stupid. Someone would have had to be stupid for everything to have gone down the way it did, right?

"It feels like.. I should have said other things, or done anything differently." Ange sounds choked up as she speaks, obviously trying to force out the words between tears and sharp intakes of breath. She can't quite forget the way Jessica looked so upset too, the more Ange said back there.

But what else could she have said differently, if having done or said anything else back then would have been a lie? A betrayal of her own feelings?

"But it hurt so much.. It still hurts!" Why else would she be crying right now? Especially in the presence of someone she cares about so much, someone who makes her feel at ease. Because it still hurts, and so the tears can't help but still be spilled while she still clings to the man. "It's as if I can't be upset," because that upset Jessica, because it was treated as if it was somehow strange for her to be upset in the first place, "but of course I'm upset..! Why do people think it'll suddenly just stop hurting..?"

[payingfordeliverance]

Unseen above her head, Break winces, hearing her echo one of his own most potent and wicked thought spirals. He engages in that same line of thinking regularly, that he ought to have done this or that or the other thing instead, unable to help himself despite knowing it's useless. And he always does make his way back around to that same conclusion eventually. Still, to think of Ange trapped in that same sort of pattern is unpleasant, knowing for himself how wretched it makes you feel.

"We can't ever know what would have happened," Break tells her, repeating his own mantra. "For all we know, whatever else you might have said or done may have only made things even worse. Since that's the case, the thing now is look at what's right in front of you, and consider your priorities moving forward."

It's a clinical thing to be saying to a girl who's currently weeping in his arms, but from Break's perspective, it's the kindest thing he could do. Raging alongside her about how everyone involved is apparently some sort of jerk who can't understand the depth of Ange's side of the tragedy may stop her crying, but it won't actually pull her out of her pool of tears, won't remove the danger of drowning. If he can give her a hand in getting to the shore, she can rest safely for a while, and find her feet.

"From where I'm standing, as you say -- it still hurts. So, then, Miss Ange's first priority ought to be Miss Ange. If they're going to tear open half-healed wounds over and over, then...no matter their intent or the weight of their own burdens, they are those you need to be protected from for now."

For Gilbert: Beginning of June

[payingfordeliverance]

Anyone showing up from home is a cause for fuss in the household, but the arrival of Gilbert in particular is a whole event. Oz and Black Alice have been here without the crucial third member of their trio for the better part of a year now, and Break, who never got to see for himself the man that the kid he worried about for a solid decade would become once he regained his memories and made his choices, has been sulking in his personal ocean of regrets about him for about that long. Ada, too, finally has perhaps her only childhood friend back in close proximity. To that end, the day Gil arrives passes in a flurry of chaos as they drag him all over the beach, drag him all over Trench, have a big squabble about the best restaurant to have dinner at and spend hours around the table once they decide, and finally, drag him all over the house. It's no surprise that it takes everyone much longer than usual to get to bed, and most everyone sleeps in late the morning after.

When Break gets up -- earlier than most of the others, because he's just like that -- he decides a big brunch is in order.

Thanks to his work at the bakery, freshly closed with Lysithea's departure, Break has a great many connections around Trench in regards to getting his hands on good ingredients. Because of that, food within the household is less bland and scarce than it could be. He fires off a text to Qrow to let him know that if he decides to come 'round for "lunch" a little early there's warm breakfast foods in it for him -- not mentioning their new arrival, of course, because it will probably be funnier that way -- and gets to work. When Gilbert wanders in, he'll find Break with a veritable smorgasbord spread across the kitchen table as he begins putting together fixings for a breakfast casserole complete with sausage, meat being a rare treat in Trench; likewise a pancake casserole; mushroom toast on what's left of yesterday's bread; and the fancy, flaky biscuits Break has learned here. To say nothing of the various bowls of fruit scattered around the place, given the season, and the muffins on the counter that Break brought home from another bakery yesterday. Depending how easily everything comes together, he may yet also be inspired to cook up a round of the savory skillet potatoes that always seem to be inhaled at an alarming pace.

It's a lot, given that he's expecting eight or nine people. Thus his preference for dishes wherein he can toss everything into a pan, throw it in the oven, and walk off for a bit, rather than hovering neurotically over pots and skillets for anything other than those potatoes and Trench's eternal mushroom issue. Somehow, though, the swordsman looks right and proper where he is, sleeves rolled up and singing softly along to a song he likes on his omni, chopping things up with easy efficiency. His omen sprawls on the floor nearby, equally content and chewing on a potato Break has rejected for having too many bruises. The kids certainly use the kitchen for their own baking pursuits too, and often drop by to help him out at times like these, which he enjoys very much. But ultimately, this room is Break's domain, and it sort of feels like the kitchen itself knows that.

[belovedscars]

It's been a whirlwind for Gilbert. Time seems to stand still, yet move all too quickly at once, but he has been caught up in simply being with everyone, laughing at the squabbling and bursting into tears at random moments and essentially being an embarrassment. He's not accustomed to being in the spotlight and is normally much more comfortable brooding in the shadows, but he's just grateful to be with his friends--his family--he can't say no to them. He accepts the attention shyly, simply happy to be be dragged along as they show him everything.

When everyone starts turning in and falling asleep, Gil hesitates. He fears if he were to shut his eyes and open them, that he would find out this was all a dream. Eventually, sleep claims him, and when it does for once he rests. Gil wakes up to sunlight and delicious aromas. That surprises him, but his surroundings quickly prove that the day before isn't a dream. Rubbing at his eyes, he heads into the kitchen to peek in--

And nearly stumbles and falls when he sees the meal(s) being prepared, with Break being the one preparing them. He does it with such ease, too, and he looks...he looks relaxed.

"Break! Let me help you!"

It's one thing to hear about Break's cooking accomplishments, and another entirely to see it in person. Gil is impressed. The food doesn't simply look edible, it looks appetizing. His stomach growls, but he ignores it and steps all the way in, wanting to help.

[payingfordeliverance]

On the other end of this, it's one thing to have sorted himself out enough to feel confident in here, to the point that it's become an enjoyable hobby rather than a desperate attempt to find his footing in a pile of useless children while still suffering from the Hatter's lingering symptoms and trying to come to terms with just what his death meant on all sides. But it's another thing entirely to have the one kid who actually understands how kitchens work finally get to see the end results. White Alice in particular has been learning too, and all of them pop in to help out. But they've been learning alongside him. Even the few who already knew what they were doing, like Dipper Pines, started learning less than a year before Break did. If anything it was a reassurance that it wouldn't take someone as clever as Break is long to sort himself out.

So, when the first "kid" to pop in for the day is in fact Gilbert, Break's answering smile is actually a little shy.

"You needn't fret," he says, assuming that's what Gil is doing. "The young ones often come in to keep me company and chop things up for me, but when it's slow dishes like these, I'm not overwhelmed."

If he was trying to coordinate several stove things at once, it would be a different story. Cooking is the one area where Break is content to remain well within his limits. He likes not ruining good food, and not setting fires.

"You said it had been quite some time for you at home, right? Then, I imagine you've sorted out just what you can do with that arm," he continues. It's not as though he's not going to give Gilbert little jobs if he's taking the lead, nor is a formerly blind man going to think for a second that Gil is incapable for having only one hand.

[belovedscars]

Is Gil imagining things or does Break look shy? He rubs at his eyes to make sure he's not still dreaming and pinches himself.

"Ouch!"

Unless this is another way Trench plays tricks on him, it's certainly not a dream. Gathering his courage, he takes a step into the kitchen, but he finds himself pausing. Ever since...everything had happened, Gil had avoided the one in his own apartment, except when it was necessary to cook something. Otherwise, being in there had been so empty. The joy he normally felt for cooking was gone, and trying to force himself only left him lonely. Because of that, seeing Break like this in a kitchen that is so alive leaves him frozen, struggling to grasp onto his emotions before they spill out into more tears. He hadn't even thought he'd reunite with Break, much less see him healthy. Gil sucks in a breath, trying to even out his voice when he answers him.

"You've learned so much."

Despite sounding on the verge of tears and more like a proud parent than friend, there's warmth in his voice as he shyly edges closer to get a better look.

"Ah... That's right, it's been six months." There's still so much he wants to tell Break. "I'm not as fast as I used to be, and some things are harder than others. But I can help, Break! I can cook!" He promised Alice he would re-learn, after all.

[payingfordeliverance]

"I suppose I have," Break concedes, electing to ignore the dangerously sentimental tone to Gil's voice. He is generous in this way. "I've realized it's rather fun, you know? Mm, but -- there's still a great deal I'm not any good at. Even if I'm able to keep us fed now, it will be good to have someone who knows what he's doing about."

He has discovered he can find out a great many things on his omni device, but frantically searching the network in times of culinary crisis just doesn't suit him at all. Being able to yell for Gilbert will be so much better.

"Hey, hey, I believe you. After all, I was still blind when I started this."

And indeed, as Gilbert becomes familiar with the kitchen, he'll notice that everything in it is well suited to a blind man. The canisters that hold flour and sugar have labels that are engraved, for instance, so that fingers can make out the words; every tool they own has a very specific place to live, and even the most careless of the kids -- read, Black Alice -- know to put things exactly where Break would know to look for them if he were unable to see. Given that the sanctity of real dinner hangs in the balance here, they are more mindful of this than one might expect.

"Actually, one of our friendly house ghosts lives here in the kitchen," he adds, the more customary wicked sparkle Gil remembers coming back to his eye. "I've told it you're here, and I imagine it'd be pleased to lend you a hand, as it were. It just likes to be included in things, you know? But, you've got to promise not to scream when you see it. It's a little shy about how creepy it is."

[belovedscars]

Before Gilbert can continue to frantically argue and try to convince Break that he's useful and he could still be needed--Break answers with a easiness that leaves him quiet and looking at the man gratefully. "But you could still best me in a fight. You're very incredible, Break." Unlike him. His laugh is quiet and self-deprecating, but he drops the subject as he looks around, his fingers tracing over the canisters, his eyes seeming to sparkle with admiration.

"It's so organized!"

He understands the reasoning behind it, to simplify things for Break and make it easy to navigate. Still, he can't help but appreciate the system. And then he nearly drops the tin he was holding as he looks at Break, his skin taking on a sickly pallor.

".....Ah?" Ghost??? "Is that-- Are you pranking me?" Please let this be a prank.

For Gilbert: End of June | cw: nightmare with a lot of corpses; discrimination eventually

[payingfordeliverance]

When the nightmare becomes recurring, Break recognizes it for what it is. After all, when Ange was suffering from similar, reaching out to her dropped the both of them right into her dreamscape, and he hears the same awful demonic chortling in his own dream that he did in hers. This is something Trench itself is doing, and that means he's going to need help to resolve it. Having made a great deal of progress since he arrived, this is something Break understands, and accepts. At last, he is able to acknowledge that there are some things he simply cannot handle alone.

Does this mean he actually does reach out for help? Of course not.

In his defense, it's the contents of the dream itself that hold him back. Ange is someone he trusts and who would drop everything for him if he approached her, and she's seen him vulnerable often enough that it's less embarrassing than it could be. But the nightmare inevitably drags him back to the scene of the Sinclair massacre, and like hell he's letting her get a look at that scene. He's made up with the pale Alice since last month's incident, but things are tender between them still, and when he thinks of asking her he can't help but think back to that long ago time when she laughed as she taunted him about this wound in particular. In theory Qrow is always there for him, but watching his confidence grow in the kitchen has been so pleasant that Break is loathe to ruin the atmosphere of the bake-off for him by putting him in a setting his corpse so often appears in.

And so it goes, considering and rejecting one person after another. Fortunately, his omen is as unrepentant a snitch as Break himself is, and around the time Break starts attempting to resist sleep entirely Baltus loses his patience. He chooses a moment when Break is parked in one of the common areas to slink off for one of his frequent "patrols", and then the noble noodle dog heads straight for the person he has chosen to help Break with his dilemma on his behalf. A person who, Baltus knows, has managed to get through to Break in very stressful times in the past, and who has the strength of will to close his fussy jaws around this problem and not let go until it is resolved, and who is not afraid to shove Break down and sit on him if necessary even though he'll probably get a cane whack for his troubles. The search does not take long. The individual in question is a predictable creature, and is often exactly where you expect him to be.

Xerxes is making stupid decisions again, Baltus announces bluntly when he finds Gilbert, his voice in Gil's head not unlike that of a Chain. Was Gilbert even aware that Baltus can speak to people telepathically? Probably not. Surprise!

[belovedscars]

Gilbert being Gilbert is where one would expect him to be: the kitchen, nursing a bitter cup of tea with a sullen expression while he makes a mental catalogue of their current groceries. He doesn't want anyone else going out and running into any potential danger. He's unwilling to debate about it, so he's wordlessly taken on the task, just as he decorated their front door with an excessive set of locks without warning. He catches Baltus in his peripheral--and is about to give a soft greeting and headpat--when the unfamiliar voice rings loudly in his mind and his drink flies out of his hand with a loud squawk.

Gil is startled, but he isn't terrified like he is of the batcats thanks to his experience with Raven. He stares at Baltus with a baffled expression, eyebrows drawn together, and he kneels in front of the dog for a closer look while he cleans the spilled tea on autopilot.

"I'm sorry...you've been able to speak to us this whole time? What's Break doing now?!"

His tone becomes exasperated, but it edges towards anger. Depending on how stupid Break is being, he isn't against using violence.

[payingfordeliverance]

I speak when it suits me.

Don't feel bad, Gilbert. Baltus pulls exactly this prank on people on the regular. Behind him, his plume of a tail gives a little wag that is not sorry at all. Given the gravity of the situation, however, the omen doesn't pause to be amused at Gil's expense long.

Trench nonsense. He is plagued by a nightmare, and someone will have to go into the dream with him to resolve it. His "voice" is very like Break's when he is solemn and serious, without the obnoxious sing-song lilt he so often entertains himself with. Xerxes is aware that he needs help. However, because the dream is very personal, he finds excuses to reject every option. It is beginning to impact his health.

It's very like a mission debriefing at Pandora. You are being called upon to provide reinforcement, Gilbert. Here's the situation.

cw: homicidal thoughts

[belovedscars]

Oh. Wonderful. An omen with a sense of humor. As if there weren't enough pranksters in this house. Before Gil can go down that mental rabbit hole, Baltus is explaining the situation and Gil finds his temper boiling. He drags a tired hand down his face that now smells like stale tea.

"...That fool. That stupid, awful foolish old man--!"

The nerve of him to pull his same stunts again, after everything they had been through, back then and now more recently. Gil would shake Break by the shoulders and scream at him if he was in the same room with him. But he has, if nothing else, obeyed his orders when given. That doesn't change now. His desire to take the life of someone, anyone who has hurt his family, has been eating away at him, like a poorly rehearsed song that stays in the ears for hours after. Ending a nightmare wouldn't be so bad, and more importantly: Break needs him, even if he doesn't want his help. Gil doesn't hesitate.

"What do I need to do?"

[payingfordeliverance]

Don't scold him too harshly, for starters, Baltus answers, stern, but without any anger in his own voice. This is not the same thing as wielding a sword alone against overwhelming enemies. In a situation like this, with Trench terrorizing him again as the catalyst, you are bound to uncover secrets that hurt him deeply. Of course he still hesitates, despite knowing better.

Even as he says it, the omen is already turning to lead Gil back to where Break is resting. He does need help, and Baltus will not back down on getting it for him, despite the fact that chances of Break lashing out at the both of them over it are high. It's yet another reason the omen has chosen Gil for this purpose. He's the one who has the most experience with standing up to the unfair, wrong end of Break's nasty temper, and once he's had a chance to calm down, Break won't be above apologizing. Not after the better part of a year with Trench whittling away at his pride.

Anyway, once Gil sees the dreamscape, he'll understand why Break would not wish to share it even with his closest people.

He assisted someone else with their own nightmare some while ago. At that time, taking that person's hand was enough to send them both into the dream.

[belovedscars]

“S— sorry…” Gil mumbles the apology, shrinking into himself a little. Baltus is right; Gil needs to put his own frustrations aside and not jump to conclusions. Stupid or not, Break is suffering and he trusts the omen’s judgment. Following Baltus, almost meek in his steps, Gil kneels on the floor by what furniture Break is resting.

“Ah…I don’t really get it, but I’ll do it,” He nods at Baltus, eyes resolute, more to convince himself than the omen.

Without any more hesitation other than a nervous glance, he hopes this won’t startle the man awake and takes Break’s hand.