fluxscape | OPEN - 'Cause when it's cold, I'll wrap my scarf around you

Who: Cole and YOU!
Where: All over Haven
When: Catch-all for helping Haven after the storm, July 12th and on
What: There's someone new in town, and he really, REALLY wants to help.
Warnings: None to start - but if Cole gets deep into anyone's trauma I'll update this space.

It starts in small ways - just little, strange happenings around town as the people work to rebuild. A box of nails right as the last one from the previous box gets hammered in. A loaf of bread just as the workmen are getting hungry. A sheet of metal coming down unexpectedly over someone's head, and a young man knocking them out of the way just in the nick of time - or was it a young man? Many, many invisible happenings, mercies great and small, and none of the native townspeople seem to remember who is doing any of them.

But perhaps you catch a glimpse. A young man with pale blonde hair and wide blue eyes, dressed in tattered leathers. Going unnoticed in construction sites. Gently slipping food from carts in the market to take to hungry people. Throwing a knife with deadly precision to take out an errant Skitter before it approaches someone unaware while looking for survivors.

He's all over the place, and every time you see him, he seems to be gone by the time you look again.

Unless you decide to approach him before he's gone.

((This is a catch-all post! Cole will be alllll over Haven, quietly helping with everything he can - you can decide to run into him anywhere you want!))

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"Need to be needed." She comes closer, tugging and twisting at her fingers. Nervous but intrigued to meet someone like her. "Even if it's not quite.

I'm River. She feels everything. She can't not. No choice in the matter."

Feeling the fright, the fidgeting, the young man does his best not to draw away as she draws nearer. She needs him. She hurts.

"...Everything...." Cole breaths the word, letting her wash over him. "Everything, all the time. So much, so loud, stifling, stunning. Can't turn it off, can't turn away, can't turn inward. Noise, nauseating and needling, drumbeats no one can hear, why can't they understand me, why can't they...."

A shuddering sigh.

"I know what it feels like."

"We know," she agrees, nodding. Tempted to reach out and pull the boy to her. To hold him. But not wanting to startle either of them. She reaches a hand out, instead. Letting it hang between them. An invitation.

"They don't want us because they're scared of us. They don't understand. What we are. If we're real."

For a moment, Cole feels a chill, right in the pit of his stomach. "Real," he echoes, wistfully. He isn't sure anyone else has really understood what it is to not be sure if you're real or not, the uncertainty, the unknown.

Wide blue eyes stare down at the offered hand, and he lifts his from his side, gingerly...then, with the lightest, gentlest touch, he takes it, almost looking like he might cry.

When was the last time anyone touched him willingly that wasn't on the battlefield?

"Maybe we can help each other."

There are tears in her eyes, but she nods, tangling their fingers together to keep hold of his hand. She's never felt anything quite like this before. Never met anyone like her before. It's frightening, but exciting.

"I would like that, Cole. Very much. Before it's only been able to hurt. But if it can help then maybe the girl can be a girl again."

This...makes sense. It tracks, it tells, it trills. He knows this feeling, this feeling of not being, of having been once but not being anymore, not really. Wanting to be again. Cole can feel it, feel the flex of her fingers, and he knows what she needs.

And so, swallowing hard, he moves forward a step, closing the distance and pulling her into a hug. It's awkward, and he's shaking, shaken, strange...but it's nice, too.

"You already feel like a girl, River. But I understand. I know. I see."

She's trembling, too. Clinging tight to him with tears in her eyes that she can't tell whether they're happy or sad or a mix of both. Both, she thinks. Too many emotions to sort through and name all of them.

"Not a ghost," she murmurs from where her face is buried against Cole's chest. Meaning him, or maybe both of them. "We can be so much if they let us."

How long HAD it been since he had been held like this last? Rhys, maybe, reason and reassurance back when there had been none. Unsure what to do with his hands, Cole rubs her back with trembling, filthy fingers.

Her words strike a chord, and he holds tighter.

"We can. Yes."

"We'll show them." But it's said as a promise, not a threat. She clutches at the back of Cole's jacket, holding on to him hard. Enjoying the embrace of someone who understands her, suddenly but completely. She's beyond thrilled to have found someone so much like her. To know she's not alone in the universe.

"Yes."

He stands there for a long, quiet moment, now thinking about Rhys, about his friend, about all that had happened. Falling into the Fade, memories of the dark and dire, the kind mage pulling him from the dark cupboard where he had-

A shudder, and he clings tighter.

This is different.

Edited 2021-08-21 04:06 (UTC)

"No -- no." Cole's memories sting and River shifts her grip a little, clutching at Cole's birdbone shoulder blades. Wanting to comfort him. "We'll be safe. I'll help keep you safe. And you can do the same for me.

The things that hurt us can't find us here."

Cole is just...so thin, emaciated, like he's only just there and could drift away at any moment. He whimpers just a little at the kind words, dipping his head low so the brim of his hat eclipses River's head as well.

"Yes. You're right. They're far, faded, distant and dark - we're gone, right now."

He eases a little bit, starting to loosen his grip to signal he's ready to pull away when she is.

OPEN - 'Cause when it's cold, I'll wrap my scarf around you

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