#geldark

*hastily googles what a streetcar is*

23) things you said on the streetcar at 1 am

Rachel glared at the glass like the windows around her would burst with a dramatic shatter from the sheer force of her gaze. Caleb watched her quietly, taking every inch of her in with every groggy flash of lamp light that passed by as the streetcar shuffled down the street, wondering how someone could possibly look so strong, so solid, so untouched by everything around her. He tried to imagine ever being so sure in how the world existed around him, but the very concept slipped away like a dream.

“This is humiliating,” Rachel said suddenly, finally tearing her eyes away to look at him. “Public transportation. Like we’re normal people. That man over there is drooling on himself, for God’s sake. They should’ve sent a ‘copter for us or something.”

Caleb tried to smile at her, but he couldn’t make it reach his eyes or pull at his mouth any more than a sad little twitch. “I like being normal,” he replied softly. “Just, for once. For once someone doesn’t know.”

The walls went up instantly. Rachel’s face went cold and melted with sympathy all that once, flickers of affection clawing past years of instilled hatred. “Yeah,” she gritted out. “No one knows but me.”

He nodded, softly, and flexed his fingers. They itched with the abnormal. He imagined, for a moment, reaching out and taking Rachel’s in his, and how that would feel. If they’d feel as strong as he imagined. Whether he could even touch her, if it’d be right to.

“Just you and me.” He was whispering now. He couldn’t help it. Something in his voice was threatening to shake with a sudden fear. The thought of turning his head terrified him, of seeing anyone else in the streetcar with them, of having her fiery gaze fall and shatter anyone else but him.

He imagined her hands around his throat…

Rachel looked away. Her face was unreadable in the window’s reflection. “The only ones worth a damn,” she agreed, and when she smiled, in that same instant, he did too.

30) things you said on the highway

“STOP!” Nora screamed.

Nisha didn’t slam on the break, but she wanted to. Every nerve in her body jerked to obey, and she could only just barely control herself enough to pull at the wheel until they were slowing to a stop on the side of the road. She turned to look at her, expecting panic and anguish, and only saw a strange sort of curiosity on her best friend’s face.

“… What?” she stammered out after a moment.

“You stopped,” Nora replied, blinking her eyes.

“You… you told me to,” Nisha said, her voice strained.

“I just-” Nora blinked again. Her eyes flickered, right-left, to the road, then to Nisha’s face. “I–”

“Why did you-.. Nora, I could’ve gotten us into an accident, that was-… it was kind of dangerous, you know? Is there something wrong?”

“I just–” Nora blinked. Right-left. To the road, then to Nisha’s face, to the right of Nisha’s face, to the road, to the right– “Just–”

Nisha touched Nora’s cheek and regretted it as Nora shot backwards, jerking her face away with a flinch like she was getting struck. “Sorry, I’m sorry-” she rushed out, as the same apologies streamed from Nora’s lips.

“I just–” She stuttered one more time. “There was a truck…”

The tips of Nisha’s fingers felt like they were on fire still. She swallowed down her guilt and asked, “A truck…?”

“A…” Nora nodded, almost blinked but widened her eyes instead, like she knew all of a sudden how it looked. “A blue truck. Like.. like his.”

“Oh.”

“I thought.. it was his,” she finished pathetically, wilting.

“Oh.” The fire spread up her arm and into her chest like a bolt of lightning. She wanted to hold her, but she was rigid. Nora flinching played in her head over and over, wronger and wronger every time. Nora flinched, she flinched, her hands coming up and blocking her face in a violent, frightened, flinch–

“… Can we go?” Nora asked, sounding seconds away from bursting into tears. “Please?”

Nisha started the car again in silence. They didn’t talk for the rest of the way home.

47) things you said in a hotel room

“Please,” Typhon whispered. “Please.”

“Don’t touch me,” Hydra said over him. 

Typhon’s breath tickled her thigh. He continued to rest his face against her lap, his entire massive form heaving with every word. “Please.”

Hydra glanced around the hotel room. “You’ve gotten blood everywhere.”

Typhon’s tail swatted hard against the carpet. Another splatter of red joined the mess around them. “Please, muh-… my…”

Hydra slowly counted the bodies with her eyes. “No, not yet… I don’t think this is nearly enough. You’ll never draw their attention with this.”

Typhon raised his strange head. His eyes, blacks and greens and reds, focused on her and seemed to fill with mud that seeped down his face, dripping onto her skin. Where the tears landed, they burned. She wondered what the acidic properties of them were.

“Please,” he pleaded.

She bared her teeth in something too cruel to call a smile. “Their blood or hers. I said I couldn’t help you until I had more, now… will you give me what I want? Or…”

He bowed down, his whole body trembling with grief. “Yes,” he mumbled. “Yes, yes, mm… please.”

He's not entirely wrong. He wasn't entirely right, though, either.

The Hydra smiled at him from the lip of the cave. He'd been waiting patiently as she'd run off, then appeared again to check to see that he hadn't fled the scene, then ran off again, disappearing into the wilderness, only to drag back... well. This was the part that was hard. She held pieces, almost indescribable but unmistakably gore, unmistakably human, an arm, a leg, parts of a torso. She dragged them in, smears of red all down her front, and placed them on the floor a few feet from him, almost as if she could smell where his hesitance stopped in the room, where that distance between what he wanted and what he couldn't have lay a solid line between them.

Her smile never faltered. It was shy, but patient, but bright in a way he struggled to keep from labeling childish. That was where the magic lay, in that glowing presence that was parts naive and parts wise, parts ancient and parts new, parts feral and parts ascended, maternal and infantile all at the same time.

It was a long moment before they would speak. The way they were, sometimes, didn't feel like they needed words between them. Language was a remnant of the humanity they'd lost.

Humanity, Caleb thought, pained and bitter and suddenly, agonizingly, hollowed by the truth. Human.

"I'm not hungry," he mumbled, his eyes dropping away. He watched her fingers flit over the meat, the point of her nails not quite digging in.

"Mm." A toneless note, hummed in the back of her throat. Her smile doesn't fall, but it does fade away, not like she was disappointed, but like she'd forgotten to hold the expression now that it's suited its purpose. Her fingers continued to flit, and Caleb continued to watch, wishing he could meet her eyes again.

"One day, you'll be hungry," she finally responded, and Caleb's eyes snap to her face, flooding with horror. The inevitability felt like a threat, but she purred it like a reassurance, her eyes twinkling at the thought.

"You'll be hungry, and then I can... take care of you," she continued, fumbling slightly as if to taste the words, to learn what they meant outside of her head. "I don't know how to... ‘cook’. But, if that's... what you prefer. I could learn."

"I can't." Caleb ached, deep in his chest, and he didn't dare to hide it, afraid this vision of a future would slip away if he tried to deny what he's always suppressed. How much he wanted this life, this cave and this meat, and her, him and her cradled under the swath of the stars above with nothing in the world to stop them. "I'm not--... I can't."

The Hydra nodded slowly, and it seemed an odd gesture, one she barely knew how to really use as she stopped and started again, eyes furrowed as she thought through his words. She looked suddenly lost, and the desperation didn't look right on her face. It made Caleb feel like he'd suddenly plunged into an ocean, and already the last few bubbles of air were escaping past his lips.

He hated hurting her. It felt worse, denying her the right to have him, worse than it felt to deny himself his right to... really live. All at once he wished he were never born, and wished he had never come, and wished upon wished that he'd never been taken, and that he got to wake up in her arms every day and go to sleep nestled beside her every night.

“You'll get tired," she eventually said. "And then... when you're ready. I'll be here." She nodded, and her fingers went back to flitting, gathering spatters of blood as they ghosted over the meat. "They're cruel, and it's hard. But it doesn't have to be."

Vision blurring as he watched her, Caleb fought the urge to blink, thinking past the burn in his eyes and the pawing of his stomach. If he let his tears down, she would react, she would reach out to dry them and he'd have that blood on his face and then there'd be no turning back because everyone would know, they'd see that stain as clearly as they see the sky. He couldn't have that. But he wanted. He wanted. He never wanted to be ready, but...

A sob tore ribbons into his throat. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"You don't have to be," she murmured back, and then she was crawling to him, settling beside him and laying her head on his shoulder. 

Caleb went rigid, and she only sighed, and he could feel her quiet strength humming through her body. He could smell her, intoxicating and thick, blood and sweat and oak and pine and petrichor. Her hair, thick and curled from her loosened braids, tickled his face. Her body, slight and omniscient all at the same time, called to him, comforting him so deeply the tears were pulled from him all their own, and as he wept, she didn't move as if she could read his mind, as if she knew the shame of it. 

7: Does your OC have any irrational phobias?

HAHA he doesn’t like bugs... of any kind but more specifically he hates spiders and he hates worms. the idea of disease is also something that still manages to skeeve him out on occasion, which is funny considering he hasn’t had to worry about getting sick for like 200 years now. he avoids people with colds SO MUCH. 

is it irrational tho considering how many times he’s been paralyzed underground while bugs tried their best to eat at him and the fact that the first time he died it was from dysentery 

8: How is/was your OC’s relationship with their parents?

his mother doted on him a lot! she was also very sickly. he was a lot closer to his mother than his father, he was kind of the mama’s boy. really wanted to make his dad proud and could never really QUITE get his approval exactly the way he wanted, he was a difficult man to please! part of why he left for america is because he wanted to proof himself to them both and also wanted to secure a safe enough home for them all the move in together as a happy family. WE ALL KNOW HOW THAT WORKED

18: What kind of intrapersonal values does your OC have? (values about their self, what makes them feel like a valid person)

:)... :’)... :”)

to nisha feeling valid means being useful! she doesn’t feel good about herself unless she’s helping others, and even then, that’s sort of weighed down because she 1) feels terrible because she feels like she’s using other people’s suffering to make herself feel better, how evil! 2) feels manipulative and fake because HER INTENTIONS ARE BAD SHE’S BAD WHO IS SHE TRYING TO FOOL 3) feels helpless because she feels like she can never help ENOUGH and the second they start falling apart again it means she failed OH and dont forget 4) feels like the second she starts helping someone, she’s actually damning them further in the long-run cuz everyone she cares about dies :)

she just really desperately depends on other people’s approval of her to feel valid in the world! otherwise she feels like the worst. she feels evil, she feels bad, and those good things from other people are what redeems her... and even then, she’s still the worst, just slightly less :( save her

LOL I ANSWERED THIS AND REALIZED YOU ASKED THIS FOR NORA NOT NISHA but i already answered 1 for nisha so i’m gonna switch them up and do that one for nora haha WHOOPS. THE CURSE OF HAVING TWO CHARACTERS WITH SIMILAR NAMES

19: What boosts your OC’s confidence the most?

sex :’( she’s hypersexual af she likes being told that she’s sexy, she likes being praised in general and she likes finding value in the compliments and comments people make about her! she has this image she loves to project, and she loves the idea of people romanticizing her and her suffering (she loves being the manic pixie dream girl for someone, it’s a very safe easy standard to live by) so when people say things that prove that she’s coming across Exactly Right she feels SO GOOD

30: What makes your OC defensive quickest? 

CONFRONTATION she hates hates hates when people use their words to try and criticize her. she hates having to use her words at all. whether to talk about her feelings, her plans, her past, her future, she accepts none of it. she wants everything to be lighthearted and superficial at all times, and she likes teasing/insulting other people but the second someone tries to do it to her, her guard is up and she immediately gets moody. 

1: What’s your OC’s biggest insecurity and how would they react if someone pointed it out to them?

answered! but here’s nora’s answer:

nora has a HUGE problem with being seen as a victim. or rather, an unwilling participant. anyone can see what happens between her and her past relationships and very easily (and of course, wrongfully) blame her for what went wrong in them, and she is totally okay with that. that way, she’s in control. it was HER fault, SHE was a victim of her OWN choosing. she can’t control her childhood abuse though and how she and her mother reacted to her father’s abuse, and she hates that. she hates how she reacts to her own trauma. she hates that her daughter seems to be an extension of her, born out of hatred and violence and abuse, and she hates the fact that she can’t help but see her own kid as that. she hates that her entire life since she was 15 has been one cycle of retraumatization after another but she also needs it too much to keep it from being her one source of an identity. to people who know her well, to nisha, this is a very obvious fact, and when they point it out, she lashes out as violently as she can to prove that she has some power and some sort of advantage in her environment. 

9: Does your OC feel a pressure to achieve or are they content and calm with doing what they can at the moment?

THE PRESSURE TO ACHIEVE IS NISHA’S WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE. and the worst part is, she’s really not all that ambitious! she doesn’t really care WHAT she’s doing in her life, as long as she succeeds the most at it! she has careers that she fixates on (currently a cop, she used to want to be a nurse though, and before that something in the social work field), and they become her entire life. it’s not even that if she doesn’t achieve, she fails, because to her, that’s putting it so lightly. there is no ‘not achieving’. she has to achieve because that justifies her existence on earth. if she doesn’t achieve, it’s not that she doesn’t deserve to live, it’s that her life was a goddamn waste and a poison to everyone around her and absolutely unforgiveable.

i reiterate: save this poor child, pls

17: Does your OC suffer from any mental health issues?

BOY, DO THEY

nisha: ocd, ptsd/c-ptsdnora: c-ptsd, bipolar, hpd, had a case of post-partum depression after she had her daughter, hypersexuality and drug addictionaaron: shitchild. tbh i can’t rly see him with any disorders that i can rly pinpoint! maybe when he was human, but

27: Does your OC practise any kind of escapism? If yes, what kind?

nisha regularly dissociates! pretty frequently actually. she also has the tendency to obsess and hyperfixate on things and use that to escape her life, and she kind of masks them until kind-of grand noble ideas... example, her current obsession is obsessing over true crime events, under the guise of ‘trying to find a serial killer’ when she only barely has the resources to do so

nora i would say she escapes through her relationships. it’s a lot of projecting and a lot of getting lost in fantasies and ignoring the reality of what’s happening, i.e. her relationship with her ex-fiance and her relationship with aaron

... stares at aaron... this shit... i would say, again, projecting, fantasizing, obsessing, he makes up these ideas and kind of... acts them out through his murders, if that makes sense? his treatment of nisha and nora all play into this image in his head and he’s constantly trying to mold the world into fitting that image yess