fandomtownies | The Park, Late Sunday Morning

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The Park, Late Sunday Morning

Crazy Apple was sitting on a park bench, her legs folded beneath her in silence. Her breathing started off slow and steady, almost like she was meditating or something.

The thing about Crazy Apple was that she knew she wasn't really some sort of other personality of Ringo's. Not in the way people usually meant when they talked about that sort of thing. It wasn't the same sort of thing as what Agito and Akito had back home. Neither of them really remembered much of what the other had done, leaving some odd fuzzy areas in both of their memories. But Crazy Apple knew everything Ringo had done, and Ringo, underneath it all, could see and hear what Crazy Apple did.

Crazy Apple was who Ringo became when she felt overwhelmed and couldn't deal with the things she was seeing or doing, but she kept seeing and doing whatever it was, which meant she'd either have to deal with it eventually or keep being Crazy Apple.

Still, Crazy Apple was independent enough to make decisions, and while she wasn't particularly interested in what Ringo ultimately decided to do, she still had little ways to influence that sort of thing. Like what she was doing now: sitting still, clearing her mind of distractions, leaving herself with few ways to avoid mulling over the thoughts swirling in her head.

Or maybe you can start dealing with your own shit like the rest of us do, Ringo, Dante had said. Fake split personality bullshit ain't cute.

Her breathing slowly sped up, becoming a little more ragged, as unformed thoughts of outrage and betrayal and an undercurrent of shame and worry slowly swirled beneath the surface of Crazy Apple's active thoughts. Ringo's emotions. The ones she didn't want to deal with. They weren't enough to push Crazy Apple aside. Not enough to pull Ringo to the surface where she could curl up and cry herself out from too many competing feelings. So Crazy Apple continued to sit there, trying to keep her breathing under control and let those emotions keep swirling.

Wondering if anything would come of it.

[ooc: Open.]

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Kathy was in no shape to head out to Baltimore yet, so she was dealing with the shit in her head by running. Not jogging, not brisk walking, running. For as long as she possibly could until her body couldn't handle it. It wasn't as good a way to shut her brain up as some other pastimes, but it was the one she had right now.

Was it good luck or bad luck that the cramp hit just as she was a few yards from Ringo? Or something else at play? Who knew?

Crazy Apple may have been pretty deep in thought, the sound of feet pounding the ground at the speed Kathy was going was enough to snap her head up.

As Kathy slowed, Crazy Apple's eyes narrowed, taking on a cold expression that seemed to weigh and judge. She gave no sign as to whether she approved of what she saw or not, she simply nodded.

"Hey, Kathy."

Not senpai.

"Crazy Apple," Kathy said neutrally, because that was not Ringo. She slowed, stretching and flexing her leg to work through the cramp. Her body'd had a year of ill-use and had fallen out of condition. Kathy was ignoring that fact and pushing it hard anyway. Cramps were just more proof she was alive, right?

"How are you holding up after everything?"

"Fine." Of course. After all, that was kind of her deal: being fine.

"The nightmares have shifted slightly, but it's not like they've gotten any worse."

She considered Kathy for a few seconds. "You?"

It didn't sound like she was terribly invested in the answer.

"Worried about you." Which wasn't a proper answer at all, but she didn't feel terribly bad about that. "Or rather, worried about Ringo."

Underneath everything, that warmed Ringo's hear a little bit.

But that was underneath. "Hmm. And how are you holding up after everything?"

Repeating the question would totally get an answer, right?

Kathy looked at her steadily for a moment, weighing her options. And finally said, "I'm pretty fucked up, actually," she told her. "Have been since I woke up. Not looking like I'm getting any less fucked up in the foreseeable future, either."

Crazy Apple considered that for a moment.

"Is that why you haven't been around?" she asked.

Ringo had, honestly, been to caught up in her own problems to pay much attention, but Crazy Apple had noticed. They basically hadn't talked since the trip to LA.

"Yeah," Kathy said. "Sometimes I can't be outside. Too many people. Sometimes I have to be outside, to try to lose myself. Sometimes I have to go into Baltimore and get into fights just to prove I can feel things. Exes don't feel pain. So long as I do, I'm not that anymore." She looked at Ringo for a minute, then closed her eyes, face back up at the sun. "My nightmares are memories. Of being an ex. I remember everything."

"Oh."

Even Crazy Apple hadn't suspected that.

"You remember what you did." That was obvious. "How you felt?" That part, well, she suspected that part, too.

"I didn't feel anything," Kathy said. "I was a zombie. Feelings weren't exactly a thing, unless you count hunger. But the virus that kept me walking kept making memories, too. I just couldn't access them. Not until I came back to life. And then I remembered everything. Every step. Every bite. Every death."

"Not pleasant memories," Crazy Apple nodded slowly.

She imagined that was a lot to deal with. You know, if you even could deal with something like that.

Yeah, Kathy hadn't made it up to 'dealing' yet. At least not healthily. "No. I remember killing people. Animals. I remember Eliot snapping my neck while we fought. What it was like having Rodney control my body. Dying. Running through Hell with Dante's mom being chased by demons. I am very fucking not okay, Ringo."

Kathy sat down on the bench next to her friend and sighed. "I put on a Kathy mask as much as Crazy Apple is. The one that smiles and laughs and tries to convince her friends she's doing super-well. I haven't seen you for two months and I was glad of it, because you were one less person I had to try to pretend to be Kathy for. You all risked your lives to bring her back. But I'm not her. I'm someone else entirely. That Kathy's dead and I'm her...shattered reflection or some shit."

Crazy Apple didn't move as Kathy sat. Didn't pull away, but didn't lean in for a desperate hug, either.

She did turn her head so that she could look up at Kathy's face in profile. "What do you feel?" she asked after a couple of seconds. "Fear? Disgust? Regret?" Something else entirely?

At some point, Crazy Apple had wondered if Kathy felt what Ringo did these past few months, but she was beginning to doubt that.

"All of the above and more?" Kathy said, not moving in for a hug, either. "I don't eat meat anymore. I want to, too much. It smells delicious and makes my stomach roil. Hell, I don't eat much, because it reminds me too much of being an ex. I snap my teeth at things when I'm afraid, too. Just, like, a reflex. But mostly...I just feel guilt. Regret. And self-loathing I don't think I'll ever get over."

Self-loathing.

Crazy Apple went absolutely still at those words.

"Hmm."

She'd miscalculated.

"Perhaps your situation and Ringo's are more similar than I'd thought." Her small smile was cold enough to be bitter in someone who emoted more. "Though it sounds like you've got more cause."

Edited 2017-04-10 23:19 (UTC)

"I hate the me I am and I hate the me I was," Kathy said with a shrug. "Me, for being so fucked up and her for having it all and throwing it away. Why does Ringo hate herself?"

"When we went to LA to find you, she ended up fighting, killing, a bunch of exes." Crazy Apple shrugged. "The killing she could have dealt with, especially given that they weren't really people, no matter what they looked like."

"But there's enough of me in her that she enjoyed it. Not the killing, but the winning."

Crazy Apple's lip twitched in an expression very few people would be generous enough to call a smile. "Ringo tries to enjoy being good at things. I enjoy being better at things than other people. When it was just inconsequential stuff like a race or whatever that made her feel that way, she could deal with it."

When it was killing? Not so much.

"And so now she feels guilty that she enjoyed winning more than she thinks she should, because the winning was bound up with killing," Kathy said. "She's upset she's not shocked and appalled and traumatized in an appropriate way."

"Pretty much."

Crazy Apple shrugged.

"She doesn't like that she likes being good at killing."

"You being here isn't going to get her more used to the idea," Kathy pointed out. "Probably the opposite."

Another shrug. "I don't make those decisions." She was only here as long as Ringo wanted to be somewhere else.

"Though distance has helped occasionally in the past." Sort of.

If you squinted.

"At least I'm making sure we get some sleep." Rather than trying to stay up to avoid the nightmares.

"This isn't the kind of thing you can get distance from," Kathy said. "It stays with you. And the more you run from it, the more ways it finds to lurk around corners to surprise you. Believe me."

She scrubbed her face, perpetually tired. Unlike Ringo, this new version of Kathy wasn't getting a lot of sleep. Or food. Or...well, a lot of things.

"I'm sorry," she offered finally. "A lot of this is on me."

Crazy Apple glanced over at Kathy and shook her head. "You're not responsible for this."

In that, both Crazy Apple and Ringo were in total agreement.

Look, it wasn't all that much more guilt to add to the pile she already had.

"Why did the nightmares start again?" Kathy asked. "Where'd you go? Why?" She shook her head. "And I didn't check up on you more. Enough. At all. I should have. Someone should have. You've never seen anything like that before, and I knew it."

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