Daybreak | IC Inbox.

[awooligan]

CLIFFORD NORMAN
UN: REDRIDINGHOODIE

STATUS: grade 11

ACCOLADES: n/a.

BIO: name's cliff. let me know if you'll buy cigarettes and shit for me, we can work something out.

© TESSISAMESS

Comments

[awooligan]

[Cliff closes his eyes and hangs an arm over his eyes, which combined with his silence and languid movements doesn't help his case of not being a useless drunk that just barged in to cause problems and pass out. But just thinking about telling Tobias the truth makes his stomach lurch and his heart race. He can talk around it, he thinks, though when his words finally come out, they're stilted and slow.]

Uh. Haven't been sleeping great. I can't...slow down, and then I just get so mad, and I don't want to? But this finally makes me tired... So I wan'ed to talk to you before I got mad again, even though I knew you'd hate me.

[hawkwardness]

[He turns and preens at his feathers, unnecessarily. Nice, soothing. A bit of comfort for himself. Obviously it doesn't stop him from answering.]

< Okay. Sure. What are we going to talk about? >

[awooligan]

How I'mmm a massive dick. And a screw-up. Carl fuckin' wishes he could throw this in my mom's face so she wouldn' be so "soft" on me anymore. [Ugh, oh -- ] How as soon as this is over, I'm not touching anything with alcohol for a month. Shit, this sucks.

[Day after day, hangover after hangover. His whole body hurts, and it isn't just all the running around he's doing to try and get his pent up energy out or the constant tension in his muscles like he's preparing for a fight that would come any second.]

[hawkwardness]

[Preen, preen, preen. The tension is building. A lot to unpack there. It feels like such an important conversation, one he has to be his best for... and he can't be sure he's up for it. He's too damn young to be the adult here, he thinks to himself.]

< Look, I'm not going to say you weren't being a bit of a jerk. Not going to say I wasn't just as bad. But, uh... after what's over? Insomnia? That's not going to magically go away. >

[awooligan]

Mmm.

[It's a weary hum of agreement, because yeah. Even if he knows this particular bout had an end date just around the corner, this was going to continue to be a problem for the rest of his life, if he got to live it.]

It's... Don' worry about it. I can handle it. Aren't I causing enough trouble for you already?

[hawkwardness]

[He pauses and rests his beak in his feathers, motionless.]

< You wanted to talk about it. And I have a feeling nobody else is helping you out. Right? Just... me. >

[For whatever he's worth. Not much, that's for sure.]

[awooligan]

[He opens his mouth to protest -- he wanted to talk, not talk about this even though his drunk idiot brain brought it up, and he wanted to apologize! But then a wave of exhaustion hits him because...he told Coco he'd try. And Tobias hadn't kicked his ass out, even though he has every reason to hate him. Why were the two of them like this...? He shouldn't keep taking advantage, he knows, but. god he's lonely.]

You can be whatever you want... Do you always feel like you?

[hawkwardness]

[Carrying on being motionless, in a way no normal human could. Only an animal.]

< Depends. Are you looking for an honest answer or is this a rhetorical question? >

[awooligan]

A -- what?

[He knows what it means, he's just too drunk and slow for this.]

No, I'm asking for real.

[hawkwardness]

< I don't even know who or what I am, dude. Not a normal hawk, too hawk to be anything else. I couldn't tell you what I want to be, either. >

[Beyond 'alive', that is.]

[awooligan]

[His selfish brain feels a pang, half of his thoughts clumsily filing away that information, but the other half traipsing down the road of what he is, what he wants to be... Human, he should be human, can he still say he is? But that isn't what he wants to focus on, so he shakes his head and takes a moment to track down his original train of thought again.]

Mnbut do you feel... [What's another way to put it...] Are you still the same person as always? When you were that big mutant -- I don't remember if it's a croc or gator right now. It doesn't matter. Do you, uh, think the same?

[hawkwardness]

< Not completely. Not all of me. I get into the gator's head... every other animal's head. I know what it's like to be an alligator. >

[Patient. An infinitely patient mind, steered by a fourteen year old bird-boy. The calm it feels outside of a fight is... pretty nice.]

[awooligan]

[That makes Cliff sit up suddenly, even if his stomach protests. A bird might not have gotten the thing about a mother fussing over fights that didn't happen, but this bird at least might get this. Even with his face feeling as numb as it is, he thinks a bit of hope might be showing through prematurely.]

How do you not, like, jus' do what it wants? If you don't like what you're thinking, but you can't go back to normal for some reason?

[hawkwardness]

[This means something to Cliff, but he doesn't have the faintest idea what. Weird question...]

< Depends on what it wants. Sometimes I just go with the flow. Act natural, if there's no reason not to. Other times... there's usually some kind of goal, and it's not like I lose my memory. I'm still in there. I just feel like I really am whatever I've turned into, instead of a hawk. A smart alligator or deer, a raccoon, whatever. >

[awooligan]

Oh.

[Mmm... He has to think that one over, trying to pick apart what he could use and what just makes him jealous and inferior, like maybe if this hadn't been something done to him, he might be...okay -- after all, when he shifted of his own will, he didn't feel so much everything, or lose control and blocks of time. He might be completely different, if he'd always been like this. He might not be such a screw-up... No, back to trying to actually work through the problem.]

Fuck, I'm too drunk for this. [It's a small, frustrated mumble that he might not even realize he said out loud. Thinking was hard.] Can't my goal just be, like, "don't be an asshole to the people you actually sorta like"? Why can't that just work?

[hawkwardness]

[He looks at Cliff, finally, piercing eyes giving nothing away. The silence almost drags on long enough to be awkward...]

< Yeah, well. It's not like I'm good with people either. Morphing can't fix that. >

[awooligan]

[He frowns, and the comment obviously bothers him, but it isn’t the same aggression curling into a snarl as there had been earlier in the day. Way too tired for that.]

Man... Fuck you. [With a sigh he falls back again, and absently curls up comfortably in the space available. Mm. Beds were so good. Must suck to be a bird and not sleep in a bed.] That isn’t what I mean... I just want to be normal. Even if my normal sucks.

[hawkwardness]

[He blinks once at that--hooray, another fuck you, lovely. Not going to get riled up about it this time, who cares. Sure. He's the worst and he's heard it all before.]

< You just want to go home, huh? >

[awooligan]

Yeah. [His voice is quieter, but has the honesty that comes from being inebriated and tired.] I want to go home.

[He doesn't want to worry about hurting people anymore because he can't control what he's doing. He nuzzles into the mattress and sighs, eyes drifting shut. He isn't planning on sleeping there or anything, it's just comfy.]

I don't want to do this anymore. It isn't fun. I just don't want to fight anyone... I don't know what else to do, because I'm not like you.

[hawkwardness]

[He doesn't mind. He's never slept in the bed. Wallow away. Another drawn out silence.]

< They might not make you fight. If you say you're not ready. They never forced me. You just have to tell them officially. I can't do it for you. >

[awooligan]

Uh? No, not...that.

[Facing the two Aspects he'd focused on had been weird, and terrifying, and he'd never been beat so badly before in his life, especially when trying to help someone...but it wasn't something he regretted at all. It had been the first thing that made him feel like there could be something worth being a werewolf, because at least he was able to protect his mom and Kevin, in a way. It isn't a fate of fighting monsters that he's afraid of.]

The school's okay. I mean this. [Cliff rolls onto his back so he can raise his arms and gesture, vague and wide, at...everything? Everything or nothing. The "this" he's taken offense with.] Ugh, I dunno. Everything hurts, and I thought it'd be easier, because I wouldn't freak out for no reason? But I'm talking way too much and you don't even get what I'm saying because I don't know what the fuck I'm saying. I shouldn't have bothered you with this, dude. What did I even want to say... I forget.

[Did he have a point......... Well, holding his arms up is tiring, everything is really tiring.]

I don't feel like me, I guess. I did this so I wouldn't feel like not me anymore, but I'm just doing something else I don't want to do.

[hawkwardness]

[Drunken rambling. He didn't miss it. But... Cliff is barely older than he is, shipped halfway across the world, facing the end of the world. Maybe Tobias is being too harsh in his thoughts.]

< How about thinking more about what you want to do? I mean, right now. Even if it's napping, I don't care. No one's ever used that bed. >

[awooligan]

[A nap... Like a pathetic child. Well, that's what he is, isn't he? Coming around crying to someone who couldn't be older than him, whining about how he was throwing tantrums and doing nothing to change himself. He closes his eyes again, just taking a moment to breathe and think. What does he want to do right now... Something he actually can do.

The silence stretches on, so it might seem like Cliff's taken the suggestion to go ahead and sleep until he breaks it.]

I want to eat candy. I should eat more candy.

[hawkwardness]

[He looks back down, peeking over the edge of the branch. It's not... nice, exactly to have the guy spend the night, but it's better than Coco dealing with this, right? And he'd be horribly selfish to not let a homesick teen use his empty bed.]

< I don't have any snacks, dude. But I know where the vending machine is. >

[awooligan]

[He's being much too patient with Cliff, especially since his eyes are still so unfocused even when he looks up at Tobias and they go bright with reflected light.]

I really want a burger. A raw steak. But I don't want to want a raw steak, I miss poptarts. Does a vending machine have poptarts?

[Despite his rambling, his speech is still slow, and pushing himself back into a sitting position seems difficult. Maybe because he's distracted looking around for the handler's glove, because that seems like a great idea.]