deercountry | it's the solstice

Entry tags:

it's the solstice

Who: Mako, Wu, & close CR
What: They might be in a different world, but the solstice is the solstice, and that means it's time to feed everyone you care about, if you're Mako
When: Night of December 21st
Where: Mako and Wu's loft above the Raccoon Room

Content warnings: Sadness from potential memory-share stuff, homesickness, mentions of Mako and Bo's dead parents

© TESSISAMESS

If you have close CR with Mako or Wu, in the days leading up to the Winter Solstice—December 21st—you may have gotten a small text invite in your inbox. A few simple lines inviting you to the Raccoon Room on the night of the 21st for dinner "because it's the solstice." Normally the Raccoon Room is closed early in the week, but on the 21st they've opened it up.

They're actually having people over in the loft above the Raccoon Room, and their living space is decked out in lanterns and candles to keep out the long darkness. Snow falls quietly outside, but in here it's warm and it smells like ginger and pepper. Wu's put on a few scratchy records in the background. Here and there, Winter Mournings are hung, not quite out of reach. It's very easy to accidentally or purposefully touch one.

If anyone comes in early enough, Mako is still at the counter with his sleeves rolled up, rolling dumplings, covered in rice flour. Maybe help him cook? He's looking better than he was early in the month: his skin is the correct pallor without that odd gray cast, and there's no smoke rolling off his body, so that... has to be good!

For the later arrivals, Mako's made dinner, which means hot tangyuan in gingery broth, an entire bowl of mushroom noodles for sharing, and a simmering pot of broth for people to cook things in, as well as a lot of a tangy sauce that Mako gets kind of cagey about when people try. Sit down, enjoy some hot pot! It's a time to be together, after all.

[ ooc: tag around, top-level, have a good time! ]

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[Ryan almost wishes it was something dangerous, which is a stupid thing to want, but at least it wouldn't be embarrassing. He rubs the back of his neck and laughs uncomfortably.]

...Not unless bad breakups terrify you?

[That would probably be fair. The gas station is eerily quiet, as though there isn't another soul around for miles - except, at the end of the road there's a beat up old van coming their way. After pulling into Gas and Dog, the van doesn't pull up to any of the pumps. Instead, it slows to a stop.

The Ryan that climbs out of the passenger's seat doesn't look much younger than the one standing next to Mako. A young woman is driving, in a long skirt and wide brim hat. Without a word to her or any sort of visible reaction on his face, Ryan fetches his guitar from the back...and nothing else.

Around them, the air feels thick and heavy. The moment is happening the way Ryan remembers it, and he remembers just barely holding himself together.

"Thanks for the van," she says, almost sincerely. Then, her tone pivots. "...But I'm still breaking up with you."

Ryan - the real one - winces in sympathy for his past self.]

[ Bad break-ups may not be life threatening but Mako winces visibly in sympathy all the same right along with him as the girl tells Ryan thanks—

For the van? For the van he said he lived in? For the van she is currently driving? Mako watches this, wide-eyed, without a word, taking in both Ryans. ]

Did you... give that to her?

[Ryan sighs in time with the version of himself from his memory.]

Yeah. I did.

[Memory Ryan seemed to suspect this would be the case though. There's no surprise as she says she's still leaving him. No shock. He just looks miserable beyond recognition.]

She broke up with me, but I'd taken her halfway across the country and she was freaking out about how she was going to get home and...I didn't have any money or any hope of a career at that point, so...

[He glances sheepishly at Mako.]

...it. Seemed like a good idea at the time?

[ Ugh, the thing is, Mako can't judge at all, and if Ryan's in tune with any of Mako's feelings right now he'll get a sort of twanging, uncomfortable empathy: relationships, people, are so hard. This is so hard. When you don't think you have any kind of value to offer except the things you have—

Mako wouldn't have given up the van. He probably would have dumped her on the side of the road (or a fuel station like this one) and told her to figure it out with some tips.

But he gets it. ]

And how long did that last? It being a good idea in your head?

Oh, probably too waaaay long.

[The truth is, he's not entirely sure. The weeks that followed are more of a blur than they should be. In the memory, Ryan's shoulders fall as he watches his dad's van drive away. It's one of the lowest lows he can ever remember feeling, and it's honestly kind of embarrassing to have another person witness his misery.

Memory Ryan doesn't cry though. He doesn't fall to pieces, despite everything. There's a payphone nearby and after staring at it for a moment, he makes his way over to it. There are a few coins in his pocket, and he could totally call, but he hesitates with his hand outstretched. The real Ryan explains.]

I thought about calling Min, but. I dunno. I think I was worried he wouldn't care, or that he'd tell me to get myself out of this hole myself? I felt like...like I couldn't call him unless I had made something of myself, or something.

[In the memory, his face hardens. He jams his hands in his pockets and storms away to the side of the road. There, he waits for any passing car and jerks his thumb out, trying to catch a ride in a depressed fog.]

Do you think that was true?

[ Mako can't help but ask, watching Ryan try desperately to get someone else to pick him up. He wants to say, you should have fought, but after four years of trying to be better about that stuff Mako catches himself because that... won't actually help, not phrased like that. No cars are passing, and the memory Ryan doesn't even know they're here. Mako shifts closer still. ]

[Ryan shrugs and doesn't answer at first. But, he doesn't move away from Mako either. It's an uncomfortable memory to be in, but they both know that. There's little Ryan can say that will actually make it worse.]

...Probably not? I wasn't really thinking right at the time.

[He gestures vaguely at his past self, who is still fruitlessly trying to hitchhike at a time of day where almost no one is on the road because it's doing something instead of feeling the feelings that are pulling him down, threatening to drown him at rock bottom.]

Like. I needed him, but I couldn't just call him without something to show for myself. So instead I came up with this stupid, shitty plan because, y'know. Obviously things weren't bad enough already, so I had to just douse them in gasoline and throw a match on it.

[He's trying to laugh it off and be self-deprecating about the whole thing in an effort to downplay it, and to demonstrate that he's clearly not as bad off right now as he was then. Plus, it's a story he's already told Wu, so it feels a little easier to fess up to, even if Mako's getting more context than Ryan would have wanted to give.]

Hey, I get it.

[ It's hard to listen to him talk like that for reasons Mako can't put a finger on. Mako doesn't know the situation, exactly: maybe it's true, maybe Ryan really did blow up his life for the sake of pride and ego, but something tells Mako that isn't the whole story. Ego's one thing, and pride a powerful motivator, but Mako's done shit like that, and it was more about trying to do the right thing. Be good, while fucking it up immensely.

He lets out a slow breath, watching a car drive past and ignore Ryan completely. ]

When, uh. When Korra and I broke up—did I tell you we dated? It didn't... go well. We're better friends. But I broke up with her at the worst possible time, when she really needed support, and I ended up driving her straight to her shitty manipulative uncle who was trying to start a civil war. You don't... make good choices when stuff like that happens. Generally.

[The truth sits somewhere between the two. Pride doesn't quite encompass all of it, not when he was dreading Min finding out that he was a colossal fuck-up who couldn't make it on his own like he always insisted he could. At the same time, there's a part of Ryan that even in the moment knew this wasn't the right answer and did it anyway, because in that moment of falling apart it felt like the only thing that might actually work.

These are the actions of someone desperate, who doesn't think he has other choices.]

I don't think you did? But oof, that's rough. ...At least you got to stay friends after?

[Watching this version of himself in the memory, Ryan sincerely has no idea how he and Min managed to patch things up. Another car zooms past without stopping and his past self finally reacts and just groans in frustration and tangles his fingers in his hair.]

So...I already told Wu a bunch of this. [He says with the full understanding that Wu may or may not have shared it, as if to say "stop me if you've heard this one before".] But. I hitchhiked all the way back to Powell Lake, where Min and me are from. I only had a little bit of money left after that and I spent all of it on two one-way train tickets to New York City. The second I was back in town I ran to find him and told him I'd gotten us an actual show there, but that he had to leave with me right away. I framed it like I was giving him another chance, but I made it all up.

[ Mako winces again in sympathy for Ryan and Min both. He knows what it's like to be caught like that, to run out of options and end up doing things that, in retrospect are... so far from your best moments they might as well be on another continent. ]

The whole thing? Show and everything?

The train tickets were real at least?

[Ryan's not sure if that's better or worse really, considering he spent so much on them when he had almost nothing to spend.]

But yeah, the show was a lie. I just...wanted him to come with me? And I didn't think he would if I didn't have something solid to offer him.

[He turns to Mako and laughs just a little, even though the next bit isn't that funny. It's just...so absurd that it might get a rise out of him.]

When he said no, I grabbed his keys and kiiiinda ran away with them.

You forced the issue.

[ Mako fills in, his brows drawing together. He can picture Ryan's desperation, his last-ditch plan falling to pieces around his ears, rock bottom crumbling away to something deeper.

It's not the best look, and that shows pretty clearly on Mako's face. ]

Yeah. Pretty much.

[He can see that look and feel it coming off of Mako in waves, and he shrugs defensively.]

Look, I don't know why he stuck around after all of that either! Especially since it just got worse from there. I made him chase me onto a train and kinda...chucked his keys in a wormhole? That part's a long story, but it was totally not my finest hour.

[ Mako is all set to just nod along wincingly with that, watching the sun sink lower and lower over this sad lonely place, except— ]

You... want to run that by me again? What's a wormhole?

[ Thank you Ryan for that new and fun piece of terminology. Mako is picturing the cracks in the ground left by those giant awful worms back in the desert. ]

It's like, you know. A swirly magic vortex that takes you from one world to another, or something like that. They're super sci-fi.

[As though that isn't a completely absurd thing to say with no context at all. Ryan hums a bar or two of his signature song in Trench, instead of using it in a real sentence.]

♫ Go ahead, take a swing,
Is this another wormhole thing? ♫

[He doesn't go through the whole song, but it's enough to make the point, probably.]

[ Sounds a little like the portal to the spirit world. Mako imagines tossing Korra's keys in there and winces. ]

...are there a lot of wormholes in Canada?

[ It is part sarcasm and part legitimate actual question. ]

[That gets a chuckle out of Ryan. The sarcasm doesn't seem to bother him.]

Nah, man. If we told anyone from home about it, they'd think we're nuts. There isn't really magic or sci-fi weirdness there normally.

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