NOOOOOO ELMER🥺😭😭😭
Is it that there's no room they can't feed him or don't want him?
A mix of all of those things, I think.
Elmer's mother never really wanted a ninth child. She hadn't even planned eight, it was just her luck two of her pregnancies resulted in twins and then triplets. Elmer's eldest sister always told him he was a "happy surprise", because there was no way she was letting their mother tell him the truth.
Their apartment in America was horribly cramped. A ten person family can't comfortably fit in an apartment with only two bedrooms. Elmer's oldest brother wasn't yet 21, but he found a wife quickly and went to live with her to free up some space in the boys room. His oldest sister marries and moves out too.
Eventually, their mother's patience wears thin. With the oldest children gone, Elmer's extra support falls to her. She's already got enough to do without having to help an eleven year old manage basic tasks (my HC is Elmer is (undiagnosed ofc) dyspraxic and autistic, and he needs some extra support).
So one night she packs up his few belongings, takes him over to the local boys lodging house, and pays for him to stay the night. And then she's gone.
The newsies take a shine to him immediately and welcome him in, but Elmer's siblings were pissed when they found out. Elmer doesn't want to leave the lodging house but his siblings visit him regularly. They don't discuss their mother.
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I've been reading through your hi note posts gradually and just got finished with the long bit about how they met Cortes. There's a lot packed in there that made me squee and sob, but that little sentence or two of Raf recognizing that he'd have a hard time surviving without Margie hit real hard. I think it's because he also identified it as something he needs to work on instead of reflecting on it as a romantic trait.
I hope this next part of my ask isn't upsetting to you: it got me wondering if Raf is familiar with suicidal thoughts and feelings. I haven't seen it explicitly stated anywhere. You don't have to comment on that if it's too raw of a subject, though.
Mostly, I just wanted to tell you I really enjoy this story. The characters resonate a lot.
oh, damn--thank you!! It means a lot to me ; 0;♡
To answer your question, haha it's a topic I kinda...tiptoe around in general because it's a box of very delicate glassware that I don't really like directly handling, but
Raf wouldn't have described himself as suicidal, not at the time. There was never an active desire to carry out that kind of thing, but he -has- gone through periods in his life when he didn't want to be alive. The sort of "it'd be a huge relief if a bus sped along and smacked me out of existence today" kinda thinking. As well, he's done some kinda...lowkey fate-tempting, dice-rolly things...like take more of his anti anxiety or sleeping medication than is recommended, j-walking across genuinely dangerous roads, testing the structural integrity of certain makeshift/temporary structures as he passes them, etc. Just little things where it's like "haha, wouldn't it be funny if -this- is what ends me." General carelessness that wasn't performed out of ignorance but rather just to see 'what happens' whilst -also- knowing/feeling relatively assured that the odds are mostly in favor of 'nothing dramatic'.
He's mostly out of those woods, though. The worst of it, for sure, was during his time in university, and then again during the tail end+ of his relationship with Lacey. Even now, though, he only recognizes those behaviors as 'suicidal' because his therapist has taken care to make sure he -knows- that's what it is. But he himself is still unconvinced that it's really as serious as that. Ragardless, at present, he has absolutely no desire to tempt fate, and it's been a decent while since he has found himself imagining the peace and quiet that a high-speed train to the face would provide.
As his musings about Margie suggests, though, he knows he's still go a ways to go before he can stand on his own two legs and not over-rely on external factors/other people for his mental well being...But it's going. He's still kickin'. He's even having a good time of it, nowadays. It's getting better, and better, and he's really glad he's gotten this far. He's happy.
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Martyn is itchy.
He wouldn’t be worried about it, really, except he’s always. itchy.
He’s cold, too, but that’s more par for the course. Cleo is a zombie, isn’t she? Undead and all, it makes sense that she’s cold, makes sense that Martyn shares that with her. He’s… fine with that. He’s perfectly okay with that.
It’s normal for soulmates to get traits from their bonded– Pearl has little stars that float around her head, and Martyn isn’t sure, but he thinks Scott’s pupils follow the phases of the moon. Tango has little wings of fire that Martyn thinks isn’t cool at all, and when Jimmy laughs too loudly his hair catches on fire. Impulse and Bdubs have shocks of the other’s hair colour on their heads. Etho looks the same, but it hurts Martyn a little to look at Joel’s face now. With too many eyes, Scar sees a cat that isn’t there, and something light blue and vex-like sits at the edge of Grian’s smiles.
Martyn doesn’t know what about Bigb and Ren is the same. He refuses to learn.
(He learns, later. Of course it’s the ears.)
But that’s a decent data pool! It’s a good, alright data pool, so Martyn knows that it’s normal for soulmates to share little parts of themselves with each other. Cleo shared her coldness, and Martyn had taken it gladly when the heat of the nether had burned him, and he takes it gladly now, and.
And.
He’s so itchy.
And he doesn’t know what he shared with her. He watches her through his spyglass and it’s just- there’s just- there’s nothing! There’s absolutely nothing! She looks like herself, like Cleo, and not one bit like Martyn.
He’s so cold (and itchy) and not bitter about it at all.
Or. Maybe a little bit? Maybe.
It would be better if it didn’t feel like another type of rejection. Soulmates giving their other halves whole parts of themselves is… it’s nice. It’s special. It doesn’t mean anything because everyone shares traits with their soulmates- Scott and Pearl share traits, even! And Martyn didn’t have the choice of accepting or rejecting Cleo’s coldness, but he accepted it anyway, and.
Cleo didn’t get anything from him at all.
It bothers him.
So he gives her his heart.
Not his literal heart, although they do share several hearts, and he thinks she might kill him again if he peeled up any of those to give to her. He can’t give her his heart, but he gives her a heart. He places it in the middle of the valley, where everyone can see, and he laughs at Tango and jeers at Jimmy when they tell him to take it down.
There’s little bumps in his skin. He stares at them, and he worries, and he itches. An allergic reaction, maybe, except they’re spread so sporadically over his body, and he doesn’t think he’s even allergic to anything. He tries not to scratch and hopes for the best.
(The bumps hurt when he presses his hands over them, but the cold numbs the pain.)
Cleo bridges out to him, and it’s. The talk they have is certainly a talk.
“Invest in some heating, yeah?” Martyn quips when the conversation drifts towards Cleo’s house.
“No.”
“Oh. Fair enough.”
He tells her he wants to go to the deep dark, and she gives him diamonds, and for the first time since joining this server he almost feels warm.
Then she starts breaking her bridge again, and she’s leaving, and Martyn blurts out, “What did you get, then?”
She pauses, looks up to him with a startled little blink. The flowers in her hair wave in the wind, and Martyn can see where their stems dig into the skin beneath her stitches. “Get what?”
Martyn almost loses his nerve, but he’s feeling a little better now that he knows why she’s really with Scott, now that he knows she’s just trying to survive. And this isn’t something he needs to know, because it doesn’t affect their survival, but.
“The soul bond,” he says. “What did you get from me?”
“A hard time,” Cleo says. “What did you get from me?”
“I’m cold,” Martyn admits to her, because honesty is a virtue and he revels, quietly, at the startled pause of silence that sits between them.
“I’m dead, Martyn.”
“I don’t care-” Martyn starts quickly, but Cleo holds up her hand.
“Shush,” she says, and Martyn shushes. “I’m dead, Martyn.”
There’s another pause. “Yes?”
Cleo sighs. It’s a hard, frustrated sound. She looks at him, watches him intently for a moment that lasts too long. Her green eyes don’t hurt like Grian’s black eyes or Scar’s not-eyes, but the look isn’t exactly pleasant either.
Cleo cocks her head to the side. She looks like she’s made a decision. “Do you know what the point of decay is, Martyn?”
“Uh. Sure. Recycling nutrients back into the dirt, right?”
“Close enough,” Cleo answers. “Decay takes from the body to sustain other bodies. Other bodies. The dead don’t… take. We can’t. We’re dead.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Grian coded it special so I could eat,” Cleo says. “I’m a corpse, Martyn. Corpses are for… rotting. Recycling. Taking from me and giving to something else. Plants. Flowers.” She touches a hand to a dahlia that sits just below her ear, then gives him a derisive look. “You.”
Martyn feels a little sick. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Cleo replies. “So I don’t get anything. Enjoy your diamonds, Martyn.”
And she leaves.
And Martyn is itchy.
–
He lays in bed that night and he shivers. There are lights outside his window and horns in his ears and he feels so cold.
–
She starts to build a bridge. Another bridge. A proper bridge. It’s broken in pieces, floating in the air, and she tells him if he apologizes all will be right. He has nothing to apologize for.
(He wears thicker and thicker layers and tries not to scratch.)
He has to meet her halfway. Just build to her bridge from her heart, and it’ll be okay. She’s giving him an olive branch. He just has to reach out and take it.
(It’s too good to be true.)
He reaches out and he pushes instead.
Martyn can barely take in a full breath before he realizes the mistake he’s made and then he- she- they-
shatter.
—
Martyn is cold.
He wakes up alone, and he’s cold.
His items are gone. His armour is gone. His layers are gone. And-
He’s not itchy anymore.
There are flowers where the bumps were. They wind from beneath his skin and rest delicately against his arm, small buds and soft petals.
(He thinks his heart has stopped beating.)
Cleo isn’t going to forgive him, he thinks. And, as he gently touches a hand to a golden flower and listens to the silence in his chest, he finally understands why.
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