xp_logs | Log: Sue and Topaz (Backdated)

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Sue runs into Topaz in their suite and the girls start talking. It doesn't go well.

Topaz was in the suite, for once, and not even in her room - just curled up on the couch, cradling a cup of tea with her history book propped open on her knees. Probably dangerous - she was leaving herself exposed. But she was tired, and the couch was comfortable.

Sue wasn't really looking as she pushed open the door to the suite, the mansion had started to feel like home and she was treating it that way, not really looking where she was going anymore. The blonde dropped her bag on the floor by the door and staggered over to the couch collapsing in a boneless heap on the soft cushions with a sigh of relief. It was still freezing outside, anyone sane would stay curled up in bed where it was warm, but no Lorna still insisted on getting in training time before the day even began. "Slave driver," Sue muttered to herself with a smile. The green-haired chef's training regime may be demanding, but Sue was definitely noticing the results; she could surf!

It was only then the realization intruded on the girls reverie, there was someone else on the couch, cracking one eye open Sue rolled her head over and noticed Topaz. She hadn't seen the girl outside of class or the library since the mess with Tandy. There was nothing Sue wanted to do more at that moment that jump up, slap and shake the other girl and demand to know what she had been thinking. Instead hte blonde satisfied herself with giving Topaz a long level look, "Hi."

"Hello," Topaz returned without looking away from her book. Her calm tone did nothing to betray the fact that she was silently cursing herself. This, this right here, was why she didn't try to spend any time in the suite anymore. She could feel the resentment and disgust rolling off the blonde in waves, and while the emotions themselves didn't bother her, the way they were attacking her shields certainly did. "Long day?"

"A little bit," Sue allowed, "you know sometimes life just piles stuff up on you and before you know it you're walking around feeling like a zombie." The comment just slipped out before Sue could help it, not that she regretted the sentiment.

Topaz didn't bother reading too much into Sue's words. If she worried about everything people said, she wouldn't have had time for anything else. "Sounds like you need a vacation."

"And how," Sue agreed, "Spring break can't come around fast enough." She rolled her head back straight and closed her eyes, "A week of lazing around, or at least no self defence classes. It's like a dream."

Oh that was right... "That's coming up, isn't it?" What was she supposed to do with herself for a week? No classes, no homework, nothing for her to fill her time with. She was going to go mad. Winter break had been horrible. Well at least it was getting warmer outside, maybe she could go for a walk every now and then...

"Yup," Sue replied enthusiastically. "Do you have any plans for the break?" she asked oblivious to the other girl's discomfort. "A week's too short for much of anything really, maybe a coupla trips into the city or something." It would be nice to get out of the mansion for a while,

"Not really." She finally looked up from her book, contemplating the door in front of her. She really was going to have to think about this. She was still weary of the city after the thing with the Slendermen - even if they had been to the city since then and it had been fine. But hey, when someone was bitten by a dog once they were wearier of dogs after. The same concept applied. "Not really one for plannin' trips or anything."

"So you're just going to sit around the mansion all week?" Sue asked a twinge of disbelief in her voice. "Won't you get bored without anyone else here? We'll all be off, and you'll be here alone."

Topaz tilted her head a bit so she was looking in Sue's direction, raising an eyebrow, sensing the disbelief. "How's that different from any other day?" She asked matter-of-factly. It wasn't a plea for pity or anything - just a simple question.

The question took Sue by surprise for a moment before she rallied, "You still have to interact with people in class sometimes Topaz." The blonde shrugged, "You can't blame us for you feeling like you're alone. It's not like you make it easy for people to get close to you. You drive us away, not the other way round."

Topaz raised an eyebrow, looking good and properly bewildered. "Who's blaming? I don't recall blaming anyone for that. I was just asking a question. I didn't mean to blame anyone for anything."

Sue smiled wryly, "Well you said you were alone everyday. That doesn't have to be true Topaz, I know that there people here who could be your friends if you didn't push them away."

"I didn't mean to make it sound like a bad thing," Topaz said simply, looking back at her book. "That's my fault, I misspoke." She thumbed the page for a moment, her gaze distant. "Sorry."

Sue sighed and turned on the couch to face Topaz, "You're doing it again," she pointed out. "You can't spend all your life running away from people. Human's are meant to be social animals, not lone wolves."

"I'm not running away," Topaz said, still thumbing page. "Sometimes it's just safer for people to be alone. For everyone involved."

"You are shutting us out," Sue objected, "It's never safer for you to be alone, other people can help you, if you let us."

"No, it's better to depend on people," Topaz returned, the sarcasm surprisingly obviously in her voice. She hadn't actually meant to say that, and she regretted it the second it was out. What was wrong with her lately.

"It is," Sue agreed ignoring Topaz's sarcasm. "What's the alternative? You can't do everything for yourself. that's why communities and cities exist."

"Why not?" She should have just let it go, she really should have. But she didn't exactly appreciate Sue trying to tell her she was living her life wrong. Who was she to judge? "People aren't dependable. At least you know you'll never let yourself down."

"Some people can always be depended on to let you down, but others will never let you down." Sue replied, "I'd rather die than let my brother down, and I know he feels the same. Besides, you say you won't ever let yourself down, but will you let other people down?"

"Can't let anyone down if no one depends on you."

"That's not strictly true though," Sue pointed out. "Your actions affect other people if you want them to or not. Besides, what do you call the situation with Tandy? She was depending on you, and you chose to help her in the short term by turning her into a zombie!"

"And when she was tellin' you that story I'm sure she mentioned that she asked me to do that," Topaz returned evenly. "I didn't walk up to her and say, 'Want me to make you a zombie?' She asked me. She knew what my powers did and she wanted it anyways. I'm not goin' to pretend I didn't mess up with that, yeah, I shoulda said no, and I certainly shouldn't've let it go as far as it did. But she asked."

Sue sighed and leaned back on the couch, "Yeah she mentioned that," the girl acknowledged, "in fact she was pretty emphatic that she was as much to blame as you were in the whole affair. She even said you had your own reasons for doing it and that we shouldn't blame you for anything that happened." She turned an open look at Topaz, "But you saw she was hurting and wasn't doing well and you didn't stop her. Why?" Sue looked down at her hands, "What made her come to you instead of me?" she asked very quietly, her voice quivering and close to breaking.

Topaz thumbed the page of her book for another moment before finally closing the book and setting it aside completely, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees, turning her head so she was looking back at Sue. She could sense the blonde's despair, her desperation for answers. "Because you don't know what it's like to shut down. To stop feeling. To want it all to just go away. Tandy didn't want to feel, she wanted to stop. I could do that for her. You wouldn't have let her."

"You think I don't know what it feels like to have your entire world ripped away?" Sue asked softly, "I was 8 when my mother died, I didn't know what was going on, she left for work in the morning and then she was gone. We never saw her again, nor my dad after that. He just vanished into his work, I barely ever saw him after that." The blonde's eye's were blazing with anger now, both from the pain she was reliving and the truth of Topaz's simple statement. "It may not have been as horrifying or as bad, but don't you ever think I don't know what it feels like to want it all to go away. I'd give anything to have things back the way it was then. It's precisely because I know that that I wouldn't have let her escape into the oblivion you gave her."

"I never said you didn't know what it was like to suffer," Topaz said simply, standing up and walking over to the kitchennette. "I said you didn't know what it was like to shut down. You deal with how you feel. That's not what Tandy wanted. That's why she didn't go to you." As she spoke she put the water on to boil, pulling a couple of mugs out. "Sometimes oblivion is safer. Sometimes not feeling is better than letting it all overwhelm you. Sometimes you just can't." She found the tea in the back of the cupboard, not quite looking back at Sue as she spoke.

"I can understand not wanting to feel anything immediately after a tragedy," Sue allowed throttling back her anger, "but how long can you keep that up? A month, 2 months, a year? Eventually you need to let yourself feel again. You have to let yourself deal with your grief, your feelings. Otherwise you can't move on and live your life. You'd just be stuck in a state of limbo, not really living, just existing."

"You learn," Topaz said as the water began to boil. She poured into the cups, dipping the tea bags. Almost three years strong, and she seemed to be making it through just fine. She brought both cups over to the couch, setting one down on the table and replacing it in her hand with her book. "You do what you have to do to keep yourself safe." And with that she headed towards her room.

"Safe isn't the same as happy," Sue told Topaz . "You can make the thickest walls to protect you from the world, but walls work both ways Topaz. You can protect yourself from the world, but you don't experience it either. You're frozen behind those walls, and the world's still moving on outside. You have to let someone in sometime, otherwise you could wake up one day and realize you're completely alone and there's no-one left who cares about you."

"Then there's no one left who can let you go down." And no one left for her to fail.