#bubblecrazedlunatic

[ @bubble-crazed-lunatic ]

      “I didn’t say I wanted to buy them. I said I wanted to steal them. I just want to free their adorably crushed faces.”

   She dropped heavily to floor, crossing her arms.

[ @bubble-crazed-lunatic ]

      “I don’t-- I don’t think she even believed we were students, which is the bigger problem. Why’d you say your name was Margaret? You do not look like a Margaret.”

   Operation ‘sleep in the university classrooms because the trains were out for the night and they were both drunk and broke’ had been fine until they’d woken up and realised they’d gotten in by breaking a window. Worse still, they’d been woken up by a teacher returning to her classroom before class started.

         “--why did we go out last night? It was a Wednesday night! Good things never happen when we get pissed on a Wednesday,” she hissed as they hurried away down the lane, Charlie pulling her jumper back on over her head. “We’re never doing this again.”

“Most certainly, my dear,” he said in the tone of someone who was paying strictly no attention to what was happening. “I shall keep it in mind. Please, do help yourself to a nice cuppa.” He turned off the device on which he was seemingly reading and poured an indecent amount of sugar in his tea before sipping it. He would never call her that word, never, and she knew it very well - and he would not give her the satisfaction of actually answering.

   Charlie’s heavy lips drew over her teeth in an irritated snarl. Clearly, she was irritated at his lack of response, but…

   Well, after the day she’d had this far, a cup of tea sounded fantastic. Still, Charlie was Charlie, and she couldn’t make tea in a calm and collected manner. It had to be done in the loudest, angriest way she could manage.

      "–some fucking ass nonsense. Absolute fucking bullshit, seriously–“

   She was muttering to herself, angrily dumping sugar into her cup. Generally, when she was like this, it was best to keep clear.

;; bubble-crazed-lunatic

   It was dark, and still hot in her little apartment. The light was spilling in from the tenement landing and the street below, through the red and orange and yellow scraps of fabric Charlie used as curtains.

   Her daughter hadn’t been able to sleep well, but now, collapsed against her mother’s chest and in her lap, she was fast asleep at last.

   Charlie was watching her old friend across the room, on her couch. He looked so... old, now. Gently, she stroked her daughter’s reddish hair, watching him with sympathetic eyes. Slowly, she got up, disappearing into the other bedroom to carefully put her daughter down before she returned. She didn’t sit back with him immediately, but instead to the case over the kitchen sink. There was enough liquor in there to reasonably fell very large game. Some things about Charlie never chained, of course.

   A glass of gin and a glass of whiskey. She did nothing by half measures, either -- both were well above a shot. The whiskey was eased into his hand, and gently, she held onto his other hand.

      “My amuri, my father’s father, called it -- well, he didn’t talk English, not to his grandbabies, but it’s like survivor’s guilt. He used to get nightmares -- abuji said he heard them, at night, talking to him, or crying. The Great War took a lot from him, and when he came home, he came home to country that felt foreign, and four babies who barely knew him. Even when I was born, and growing up, nearly twenty years later, he was still hearing his friends in the night time.”

   There was something unspoken in her statement. Charlie was never one to talk very openly about her pain and her suffering, a flaw that had never done her any good. Her tone of voice, the way she spoke gently and held his hand, said what she couldn’t -- you are not alone. I hear it, too. Of course, one would have to have a relatively perceptive friend for that to be noticed.

   Gently, Charlie kissed his knuckle, shaking her head.

;; bubble-crazed-lunatic

         “--of course it wasn’t me,” she snapped, pulling her clothing more solidly around herself. She didn’t know why -- he had seen her in all states of undress before, but it was a little different when he had managed to catch her in a compromising situation with someone else.

   Scoffing, she crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against the wall of the alley.

;; bubble-crazed-lunatic

   She’d hated his voicemail message, before. It had inexplicably irritated her, although she wasn’t sure why. Now, it filled her chest with a deep, agonising ache.

   beep.

   For a moment, she was silent. She didn’t know what to say. Swallowing dryly, she looked out the window, at the garden beyond.

      “I miss you,” she began, her voice a mumble. She had been speaking only French for so long that her English had picked up an accent. Again, she stopped, biting on her lip slightly, before she continued on.

         “You were my best friend. I know we had our arguments, and it was… complicated at times. I know we were both terrible at keeping boundaries. I didn’t care. I never did. You were my best friend. You were, until Maximilien, the only person who ever loved me, Doctor.”

   She fell into silence again. Her face felt hot, her eyes watering.

      “It doesn’t feel right, being here without you, and knowing you’re never coming back. Maxim understands. He is, I think, the only person in the world who could understand. He’s a good man. I wish you could have gotten to know him better.”

   She tried not to audibly inhale, trying to hide the fact she was very nearly crying. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t like he could hear her. Not anymore.

      “You didn’t get to meet our youngest two, either. Another girl, of course, and finally, a boy. Six babies, could you imagine? Of course you could. Of course you could. I think you always knew. I wish you could have known them, too. My boy, he’s four. It’s been that long. Cèce is getting so tall. She’s twelve, next week, you know. She asked about you, the other day. She said she misses you. I miss you. We all miss you, Doctor.”

   She could hear her husband and the children coming back up the path. That many young ones tended to bring with them this aura of noise. He would have loved it, that sort of ordered chaos.

      “You would have loved them. They’re growing up so fast. I wish it didn’t have to be without you.”

   Drawing a deep breath, she forced herself to regain composure, swallowing and straightening her back. Her children would be back soon. She would not cry in front of them.

      “Koschei,” she began, addressing the husband of her dearest friend, just in case. “If you are listening to this, if you are… if you are alright, I want you to know I’m thinking of you most of all, right now. I know, and I understand, that you probably want nothing to do with me. You want your children to have nothing to do with me. I get that. But if you change your mind, ever, then… well, you know where to find me. I’m so sorry, Koschei. I’m so sorry.”

   Again, she swallowed, although her mouth was dry.

      “Goodbye, old friend. Love you madly. Goodbye, Master, I pray that you are alright. I will see you both again, one day… I hope.”

   The phone beeped gently. The voice of the automated service seemed to only make it final.

      voicemail inbox full. please try again later.

   The phone was, for the last time, set aside. Her only remaining link to the future, to the universe outside of this little bubble of time and space under the clear West Indies sky, had been severed.

   The children came in, as Charlie placed her mobile in the desk drawer.

;; bubble-crazed-lunatic      this

my opinion on;

character in general: my awkward space baehow they play them: well you’re both awkward space bae so i think you have that downthe mun: ULTIMATE BAE. i would marry ruth. i would marry ruth so hard. i would be mx cat ruthington. i would. ruth is amazing

do i;

follow them: duhrp with them: duhwant to rp with them: like all but 1 of ur drafts is meship their character with mine: in a really messed up ‘kind of but no but yeah’ way

what is my;

overall opinion: 10/10 ruth bae

     July, 1955.

  It was unusually hot. Haze had settled over London like some stifling, suffocating blanket. The city, crowded, overpopulated, choked in the afternoon sun. The river had become settled with smoke, dancing across a surface almost uncharacteristically smooth. There was no wind, only heat, and smog.

     Children played in gutters, women hung out of door frames and windows like silk stockings, chattering, shouting. The atmosphere was oppressive, but the people, she noticed, didn’t seem to care. The air was thick with it, with overcrowding, disease -- families of ten who lived in two rooms, babies left in prams outside or balanced on the hips of siblings scarcely old enough to walk around.

  Her dress clung to her heavy thighs in the damp, orange afternoon glow. It would have been pretty, once, but now it was dirty from the day’s work, stained, the hem ripped. She was leaning against the rough brick wall, silent, watching. The roots of her hair had turned to undefined kinks from the sweat that beaded on her forehead. The ends of her hair that had been styled into smoother, defined curls had started to turn frizzy in the humidity. The fair colour caught the dying red light, and her hair looked like fire.

        She shuffled, uncomfortable, on calloused and bare feet, before sighing. It was getting late. Little use standing around and watching children play like pigs in shit.

           “--come, child girl.”

  Her voice cut through the din of the street. It got the girl’s attention, and she collected herself from where she had been playing hopscotch with some neighbourhood girls. Unlike her mother, she was dressed well, in clean clothing, her red curls braided carefully off her face. Her shoes scraped on the ground as she ran to grab her mother’s hand and was lead off through the streets. She was a slender thing, unlike her mother, gangly, skin mid-toned and freckled.

           “Do I have to go to aunty’s house, mum?”

           “You been ask a lot of questions, child girl.”

        “Yes, mum. Do I have to go to aunty’s house,  mum?”

        “Yes, little one.”

        “But why, mum?”

  Charlie sighed softly. Explaining the intricacies of commerce to a six-year-old were generally quite a struggle.

        “You like your father, abwei girl. Always ask questions.”

        “Yes, mum.”

        “You stay with aunty tonight. I’ll come get you, take you to school. Then you stay with me tomorrow.”

        “Okay. Mum?”

        “Yeah?”

        “I love you, mum.”

  Charlie wished she had more time to spend with this little girl. She grew like a weed and learned new, ever more complicated words by the day. She wished she could have stayed with her every moment of every hour.

  Aunty was, in fact, not a relative at all. She was an old Jain widow who lived in the flat across the tenement landing from Charlie and her daughter, who spoke little English and fed the little girl all manner of sweets and spiced food. She came home with vermillion on her forehead and saffron in her hair, and smelling of incense and masala. Aunty taught the child songs from her own childhood, taught her how to cook rice and how to sit in silence, and the little girl came back with smiles and stars in her eyes, always.

        “Mum?”

        “Yes, child girl?”

        “You being slow, mum.”

        “I know. Ain’t feeling so good, baby. You go to Aunty. I’ll catch up.”

        “Yes, mum.”

        “--and take your shoes off before you go in, your mother and Aunty ain’t raising no savage girl wearing her damn shoes inside.”

  The little girl called out an affirmative response, but she was already two staircases away, and only one of Charlie’s ears could hear. Without her daughter hurrying her, she could afford to take her time.

    When she had finished resting against the railing, watching the last of the summer light fade into the grey smoke, she turned to continue up the stairs only to slam right into someone. She managed, only just, to catch herself from slipping backwards.

        “--you ain’t looking out where you going, boy. Your mother ain’t teach you no manners? Ain’t got no thoughts in your head?”

  Her usual charming self, Charlie then attempted to barrel her way past him, using her significant weight to her own advantage. She didn’t bother to look up at him at all.

        “Mum?”

  Her daughter’s voice called down from the landing above, the little girl leaning out over the railing as if trying to spot her mother.

     “I’m coming. You best not be hanging over that rail again, child girl.”

        There was a pause, and then;               “no, mum. Who are you talking to, mum?”

     “Some boy, nosy child. Go inside.”

  The girl could be heard retreating, and Charlie gave an irritated huff, waving her hand at the person she’d run into.