now take what i offer, straight up the nose, down the throat
it's a bearable bruise on your conscious
Her half agreement is considered a win, temporary though it might be. It’s like the last breath one takes before falling back into the water. It sucks, gods does it suck, but even despite the suffering you get to hang on for a little bit longer, even if your throat and lungs burn with the force of a million razors.
Her strangled laugh is quite similar to the feeling, he’s sure. Tears streak down her face again and Sunjata understands the way she barely blinks them away, the way she doesn’t try to hide them. He can understand, even if he can’t relate — he’s always hid his, kept away from letting people look at him when he’s vulnerable. Just another childhood trauma that can’t be erased despite the decades that have passed.
“Nah. I don’t win, Colt. I survive.” The smile he shoots her way is one bred from sorrow and self deprecating humor. It isn’t a lie, though, he’s got the scars to prove it (both physical and emotional). But then she’s considering that she may not have ever been in love before just because it hasn’t destroyed her as far as it’s destroyed him, and it’s Sunjata’s turn to offer a huff of a laugh, a shake of his head that sends his earrings dancing with the movement.
He looks back at her then as he shrugs the shoulder she isn’t leaning against. “You’re stronger than me.” He says it simply, like it’s the obvious answer. Sure, he’s got all of his demigod strength and his abilities and shifts, but emotionally? Sunjata has always been glass. The kind glued back together and wrapped with duct tape so many times that you can’t see through it very well anymore. “I uh,” he looks away, pinpointing at the bookshelf in the distance like it gives enough leeway that she won’t see the way the muscles of his face twitch beneath the stubble for the frown that sits there. Like he’s deciding how vulnerable he’s allowing himself to be. “I’m not good at being alone. I think I grew up wanting to be wanted so badly that when someone did want me, I made it a part of me so deep that when they were.. gone, it just cemented the fact I wasn’t good enough.” And if he wasn’t good enough, then why stick around?
He’d always thought he was cursed anyway. And even if the tragedies of his love life weren’t directly his fault (Nate’s, at least), he was still too good at manipulating and gaslighting himself to believe that it was. He hadn’t done enough to prevent Nate from going to war. He hadn’t been there when he’d died. He’d gotten the soldier’s call at his doorstep when Isla returned to tell him. He can’t even remember the last time he said he loved him.
Colt offers some light in the mix, though, the kind that’s a balm but not bright enough to break through the murky surface. “Who says I don’t?” Hate the world, that is. “Maybe I just don’t want other people to have it like I do.” It’s a slip up, one he thinks about correcting before giving up on it. Hotaru has vanished and he was once again left alone. Unsure what he did wrong at the end of the day.
Not enough to make it Frey’s problem until he asks around more, he supposes.
Nodding as she compliments the room, Sunjata takes it in again. The couch he’d slept on occasionally when his back was too torn up to lay in his bed. The box of toys in his room that he was allowed because his mother had snuck them in for him. The as close to home cooked meals as he could get. The quiet and dull roar of rain outside and the beach not far from here.
She says she thinks it’ll hurt more and he finally manages to rein his mask in enough to look over at her with a small smile, lopsided in nature from the scar. “Probably. I’m pretty sure I’m a masochist.”
Her strangled laugh is quite similar to the feeling, he’s sure. Tears streak down her face again and Sunjata understands the way she barely blinks them away, the way she doesn’t try to hide them. He can understand, even if he can’t relate — he’s always hid his, kept away from letting people look at him when he’s vulnerable. Just another childhood trauma that can’t be erased despite the decades that have passed.
“Nah. I don’t win, Colt. I survive.” The smile he shoots her way is one bred from sorrow and self deprecating humor. It isn’t a lie, though, he’s got the scars to prove it (both physical and emotional). But then she’s considering that she may not have ever been in love before just because it hasn’t destroyed her as far as it’s destroyed him, and it’s Sunjata’s turn to offer a huff of a laugh, a shake of his head that sends his earrings dancing with the movement.
He looks back at her then as he shrugs the shoulder she isn’t leaning against. “You’re stronger than me.” He says it simply, like it’s the obvious answer. Sure, he’s got all of his demigod strength and his abilities and shifts, but emotionally? Sunjata has always been glass. The kind glued back together and wrapped with duct tape so many times that you can’t see through it very well anymore. “I uh,” he looks away, pinpointing at the bookshelf in the distance like it gives enough leeway that she won’t see the way the muscles of his face twitch beneath the stubble for the frown that sits there. Like he’s deciding how vulnerable he’s allowing himself to be. “I’m not good at being alone. I think I grew up wanting to be wanted so badly that when someone did want me, I made it a part of me so deep that when they were.. gone, it just cemented the fact I wasn’t good enough.” And if he wasn’t good enough, then why stick around?
He’d always thought he was cursed anyway. And even if the tragedies of his love life weren’t directly his fault (Nate’s, at least), he was still too good at manipulating and gaslighting himself to believe that it was. He hadn’t done enough to prevent Nate from going to war. He hadn’t been there when he’d died. He’d gotten the soldier’s call at his doorstep when Isla returned to tell him. He can’t even remember the last time he said he loved him.
Colt offers some light in the mix, though, the kind that’s a balm but not bright enough to break through the murky surface. “Who says I don’t?” Hate the world, that is. “Maybe I just don’t want other people to have it like I do.” It’s a slip up, one he thinks about correcting before giving up on it. Hotaru has vanished and he was once again left alone. Unsure what he did wrong at the end of the day.
Not enough to make it Frey’s problem until he asks around more, he supposes.
Nodding as she compliments the room, Sunjata takes it in again. The couch he’d slept on occasionally when his back was too torn up to lay in his bed. The box of toys in his room that he was allowed because his mother had snuck them in for him. The as close to home cooked meals as he could get. The quiet and dull roar of rain outside and the beach not far from here.
She says she thinks it’ll hurt more and he finally manages to rein his mask in enough to look over at her with a small smile, lopsided in nature from the scar. “Probably. I’m pretty sure I’m a masochist.”
but don't it feel good? don't you feel calmer?
i am the way and the life in the best looking truth
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
