don't think anyone ever gets over their homeworld pizza there was this one place in vale my team probably singlehandedly kept open when i was a kid
[The joke is -- strained, though, honestly. The number of people who know about his drinking at this point are the kids who witnessed it in real-time, Glitch who learned because of an off-color joke, Ozpin, and Vyng.
(Neopolitan hasn't occurred to him at all; he does actively try not to think about her, most days. The obvious notion that Emerald might have told her, back in Deerington, has skipped his notice entirely)
But the extremely short list of people who know is what has him uncomfortable, actually. He's always been deeply private about this topic above and beyond the rest. Having a near-stranger suddenly confront him with it is stressful, especially now that he's getting the vibe of someone going behind his back.]
before that tell me who told you and why you're avoiding saying it
Didn't realize this was a huge secret. NP told me to talk to you, Which should answer both your questions, But all she said was that you "have your bad days, too".
I mean, she said it after I spilled my guts on how I spent a sixth of my life numbing myself with booze and weed, but maybe I put the legwork in on connecting these dots.
i don't usually like to talk about it there's only a few people who know, and most of them wouldn't go behind my back and try to hide that they said something so i wanted to know what that was all about
figures it was her but i'm guessing she's worried about you, then that about tracks
[He and Neo barely tolerate each other on a good day. She isn't exactly going to be worried about his sobriety, as far he figures.]
i know some shops in willful machine we can meet and pick one there
[it's obvious to anna that this is a way bigger deal than NP prepped her for, but that's not a surprise. and it's definitely not something anna herself is capable of handling gracefully, but add that to the list, right? she heads out to the nearest lamp and heads over to willful machine. once she gets there, she starts leaning against the wall of a building in her longcoat with the collar high.]
[in her urge to get out of the house, she's left her eyepatch behind. by the time she realizes it she could just ask vier to grab it for her, but decides fuck it, she already feels vulnerable enough. so her black-glass eye with lines of gold and silver running through it is on display, and will be the whole time. fuck it, right? whatever. why not cap off the night like this.]
[she's waiting around for someone to approach her before she realizes that she only barely knows what qrow looks like. so this'll be cool. she pulls the sleeve of her longcoat and her shirt up to reveal the seams in her arm that give her away as a robot with artificial skin. that should at least make her easy to spot.]
[On the plus side, they have literally all been squids already and he personally knows a robot girl, so a glass eye and artificial skin aren't even on the list of things that Qrow would register as particularly weird or noteworthy.
Qrow flies to Willful Machine rather than take a lamp; it's just the more comfortable experience for him. Still, as much as it's not precisely a secret that he can do so, he prefers at least a little time to settle into knowing someone before showing all the cards up his sleeve. It's convenient that Never Mind's ravens are always all over the place; there's no reason for Anna to think any of it when a certain black bird flies just out of sight past her head, followed by a man walking toward her from the same direction the bird left.
[she resists the urge to flip the bird the bird as it flies by. no, anna, you have to be nice to the ravens, you're trying to get to know more about Never Mind. plus if you piss them off then you could end up in the corpse river again so maybe just chill out. she exhales, and she's about to pull out a cigarette because why the hell not when someone approaches her and says her name.]
[her head lifts towards him, and she stands there for a moment, her body moving a little slower than she thought it would. maybe she's shaking off the cold. maybe she doesn't know how to deal with being Known in real life after so many people talked at her overnight. either way, she lowers the half-pulled cig back into the pack, puts the pack into an inside pocket, and pushes off the wall with her back muscles.]
That's me. [and this must be the guy she's waiting for. nobody else around. she doesn't offer a wave.] Late night, Qrow? You don't look like the early to rise type.
[He shrugs, spreading his hands in a slightly more dramatic gesture than strictly warranted.]
Yeaaah, no, late and early pretty much stopped having meaning years ago. It's less "sleep" and more "occasionally passing out from exhaustion" at this point.
[Which is an alarmingly casual way of saying that you kind of have chronic insomnia issues but whatever. He's so used to it at this point the idea of having a Proper Schedule (TM) is actively low-key repulsive. One reason of several he has not bothered to get a job in Trench, honestly.
[she just assumes he means coldblood stuff, since she hasn't had a solid night's sleep in several weeks now even without taking these memories into account. it's been great, and cool. (though it actually hasn't been too terrible this month, which really has been a reprieve. guess that's why her brain kicked it into overdrive.)]
Gotta say, if I didn't know you were from Remnant, this whole look would've given it away. [she looks at all the crucifixes he's decked out in and fixes him with a look halfway between skepticism and surprise. she didn't think they had the big JC there, but she never really asked.] So you pretty big into religion or is it just an aesthetic choice?
[It is truly comedic how fast Qrow's expression twists into something that looks like it's sucked on an entire lemon. The casually irreverent posture shifting into something legitimately irritated -- albeit not at her.]
Ugh. No, fuck gods. They ruin everything.
[Normally, he'd keep the following information on the downlow, but she already knows Oscar's whole deal so you know what? Screw it.]
...Remember that whole "forever war" situation Oscar told you about, back in Remnant? That's their fault. I don't mean in the sense of like, a religious war. I mean they literally blew up our moon and abandoned the planet, and then threatened to come back and finish the job if they judged us ~unworthy~ whenever their relics were put back together.
[So sorry, Anna, you kind of opened a can of worms with this one.]
The war's never going to end because the one trying to cause the apocalypse was literally cursed with immortality by them. If I ever get the chance to punch one in the face, it'll be satisfying as shit.
[now, see. she has heard about salem. she has heard that salem was immortal, and that she was killed enough times that she forgot who she was, which always did seem a little brutal. but she is not immortal because of the dream, and that's new information. along with everything else here. like, what?]
[anna backs away just by one step and straightens up a little, like she can tell she's touched a very unexpected nerve. despite that, the whole... mythology here compels her. and what she's focusing on is not the creation myth (that seems to be a creation reality) or the eschatological threat. because no matter how realistic it all seems, those parts aren't the weirdest mythology she's ever heard. no, the thing that does get her solely because of how real it is is...]
They blew up the moon? What the fuck, just out of spite? "Good luck having tides and werewolves, assholes, see you in a millennium"? [she pushes her hair out of her face on instinct, like she's adjusting an eyepatch that isn't there.] Well, they sound like huge dicks. Hope you get to kick their asses when they come back.
Pretty much, yeah. I mean, we still have a moon it's just, uh...shattered up there.
[He is not sure how this affects their tides tbh bc he is the farthest possible thing from a scientist, but he seems confused for a moment about the werewolves? Is that like those YA fantasy novels with the wolf faunus that can turn into humans sometimes? He vaguely recalls hearing Blake have very passionate opinions about those books to Yang at some point on their trek to Atlas, but that was before Jinn and everything that's happened since and he'd be damned if he can remember.
Among the benefits of being sober are keeping just enough presence of mind to occasionally avoid shoving your entire foot in your mouth, so he will wisely refrain from comment for once in his life.]
Assuming we don't all die first, anyway. But hey, if there's still an afterlife in Remnant, maybe that's another solid plan.
I mean. From what NP tells me, [there's that name again. she moves past it fast.] You guys killed that apocalypse witch so hard she forgot who she was. Think you can handle a couple gods after that.
[she's acting like it's something to be proud of, but with all the information she's received since then, it clearly isn't. she wonders how many people didn't want to do that to salem; ruby was probably one of them.]
C'mon, let's get inside somewhere. I'm cold enough already and it ain't getting any warmer.
[Salem was only killable because of Deerington; if Ozpin could've killed her, the war would've ended a long time ago. Truthfully, Qrow has very little faith that they will defeat Salem or the Gods. But the kids haven't given up, so he's not allowed to either. Or at least, the version of himself still there isn't. He's relieved to leave it all behind.]
...Huh. Didn't realize you could get cold. [Due to the whole Robot Thing.] Yeah, sure.
[He scrubs at his chin stubble a moment, thinking.]
There's a place down the street I have a tab with. They let me eat, and I do chores and errands for them about once a week.
I guess it's not any weirder than all of us being squids.
[Will literally anything top being a squid? Qrow is not sure, but he expects to be proven wrong any time now.]
...Who's Macduff?
[Come on Anna does this look like a man who reads Shakespeare to you;;; it is unlikely he's read any work of literature that has not come in illustrated format at minimum in his entire goddamn life.]
Oh right, you guys probably don't have Billy Shakes. It's a play from back home about this dude who kills the king, becomes the king, and then does a whole lot more killing once he's on the throne. Fun little story about paranoia.
[she shrugs, the heavy shoulders of her coat rising and falling. it feels nice around her. maybe she'll make it part of her regular wardrobe even one the winter is gone.]
Saying the name of the play is also super cursed, if you believe theater tradition. Supposed to bring bad luck to anyone who says it.
[He sort of harrumphs, irritably. It's not like how he went off about the gods before, but there's a distinct sense he's deeply disgruntled about this notion.]
Sounds like a pain to keep putting it on. How do people even get tickets? They call it "The Cursed Play" at the box office, or what?
[The whole play itself sounds kinda yikes too, like someone decided to write a whole play about Ironwood, except actually as a king rather than a wannabe one. Bleh. He really wants that damn pizza now.]
[Let the record state how much he hates that he was actually right. He hates it a lot. But Qrow would rather chew on broken glass than have any kind of extended conversation about luck, so her subject change is perfectly timed.]
Depends on the crowd. Sometimes I'm the kind of pizza guy who'll order pineapple just to mess with everyone else.
[Pineapple on pizza is an abomination against gods and man but he has probably picked at literal garbage pizza in bird form before so like. Sometimes you choose violence, because it's funnier. You know how it is right Anna.]
[she knew that already, but she knows how to be appreciative. game recognize game.]
It's been long enough for me that I might just go with whatever for the hell of it. Pizza's like one of those real deep depression foods for me. [which makes it appropriate that they're going for it now.] So it's been a while. That and losing the whole... ability to get nutrition from food for a bit in the middle there.
In that case, might as well just ask about the specials. There's always some new mushroom-laden concoction the old lady's got going on.
[Yes, the owner of the pizza place that Qrow's formed this deal with is a badass little old lady. She may or may not have intense Maria vibes. Qrow is nOT predictable, how dare you.]
Yikes. Guess that's one perk of having blood again, huh?
[listen,,, he just really enjoys food ok....now that he no longer drinks, junk food is like his last remaining vice...]
Eh, I mean, I could still eat, but I was just doing it for the taste before I got my blood back. Kind of a lot to be said for, like, waking up and knowing your body will actually like what you put inside it.
[she looks around, trying to familiarize with these streets. with the Tower out and about lately, it's been hard to find her way around, but mercifully he seems to be taking pity on them. maybe he knows she's been up all night and she's not having a good time. maybe getting tight with Cloverfield has been a good idea so far.]
Or knowing your body won't later, but your head will now. [which is kind of the problem.]
[....Well shit. He can definitely relate to that last part, all too well.]
...Yeah. Knowing you can escape from everything for a while -- it's real easy to fall into.
[He's a little unsure how much she wants to talk about, though. She'd said she didn't want advice, and so that's why they're getting pizza, but here's the topic, rising to the surface again like yeast in bread.]
Getting used to being stuck with your thoughts is probably one of the hardest parts.
[...Aside the initial active withdrawal part, anyway. That sucked a whole lot.]
[she said she didn't want advice, but she says a lot of things. she takes a moment to think of how best to respond to that. whether she should open up a little or not. she's tired right now.]
Five years. [it comes out in a way that almost takes her by surprise.] That's how long my "while" was. Before I finally started pulling myself out of it and having to deal with my thoughts on their own.
[she's not looking at him when she says it, instead trying to pretend like she's still trying to find their pizza place.]
[Ah. There is an anxious moment, just the space of a breath, where he wonders what he really has to offer here. Not only did she manage to clean herself up in less than half the time it took him to get his shit together, but she'd been clean longer than he has.
Then the moment passes, and he rolls a shoulder.]
Must have been eleven, twelve years for me.
[That time is a muddle of grief and alcohol and the stress of keeping two little girls alive when their mother was gone. He's lost details like his own exact age when he gave up hope on finding Summer alive, or even finding a body to bring home.]
I'd only stopped a couple months when I first got drawn into the dream. Making it this far seemed kind of impossible back then.
[He doesn't want to say something trite like how she surely will be able to do it again if she's done it once before, or that he believes in her, or something like that. Really, he's not sure what to say. He's never exactly been to one of those support group things. He rubs at his neck.]
Look -- to be honest, I've got absolutely no clue how this works. This whole 'fellow drunks' thing. I'm probably the worst person to ever give anyone advice on how to unfuck their life, but uh. I get the feeling your original reasons for trying didn't make it out of the ocean with you, so...if you need anything, you got my number, I guess.
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there was this one place in vale my team probably singlehandedly kept open when i was a kid
[The joke is -- strained, though, honestly. The number of people who know about his drinking at this point are the kids who witnessed it in real-time, Glitch who learned because of an off-color joke, Ozpin, and Vyng.
(Neopolitan hasn't occurred to him at all; he does actively try not to think about her, most days. The obvious notion that Emerald might have told her, back in Deerington, has skipped his notice entirely)
But the extremely short list of people who know is what has him uncomfortable, actually. He's always been deeply private about this topic above and beyond the rest. Having a near-stranger suddenly confront him with it is stressful, especially now that he's getting the vibe of someone going behind his back.]
before that
tell me who told you
and why you're avoiding saying it
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Didn't realize this was a huge secret.
NP told me to talk to you,
Which should answer both your questions,
But all she said was that you "have your bad days, too".
I mean, she said it after I spilled my guts on how I spent a sixth of my life numbing myself with booze and weed, but maybe I put the legwork in on connecting these dots.
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there's only a few people who know, and most of them wouldn't go behind my back and try to hide that they said something
so i wanted to know what that was all about
figures it was her
but i'm guessing she's worried about you, then
that about tracks
[He and Neo barely tolerate each other on a good day. She isn't exactly going to be worried about his sobriety, as far he figures.]
i know some shops in willful machine
we can meet and pick one there
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See you there.
[it's obvious to anna that this is a way bigger deal than NP prepped her for, but that's not a surprise. and it's definitely not something anna herself is capable of handling gracefully, but add that to the list, right? she heads out to the nearest lamp and heads over to willful machine. once she gets there, she starts leaning against the wall of a building in her longcoat with the collar high.]
[in her urge to get out of the house, she's left her eyepatch behind. by the time she realizes it she could just ask vier to grab it for her, but decides fuck it, she already feels vulnerable enough. so her black-glass eye with lines of gold and silver running through it is on display, and will be the whole time. fuck it, right? whatever. why not cap off the night like this.]
[she's waiting around for someone to approach her before she realizes that she only barely knows what qrow looks like. so this'll be cool. she pulls the sleeve of her longcoat and her shirt up to reveal the seams in her arm that give her away as a robot with artificial skin. that should at least make her easy to spot.]
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Qrow flies to Willful Machine rather than take a lamp; it's just the more comfortable experience for him. Still, as much as it's not precisely a secret that he can do so, he prefers at least a little time to settle into knowing someone before showing all the cards up his sleeve. It's convenient that Never Mind's ravens are always all over the place; there's no reason for Anna to think any of it when a certain black bird flies just out of sight past her head, followed by a man walking toward her from the same direction the bird left.
He raises one hand in greeting.]
Yo. Anna, right?
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[her head lifts towards him, and she stands there for a moment, her body moving a little slower than she thought it would. maybe she's shaking off the cold. maybe she doesn't know how to deal with being Known in real life after so many people talked at her overnight. either way, she lowers the half-pulled cig back into the pack, puts the pack into an inside pocket, and pushes off the wall with her back muscles.]
That's me. [and this must be the guy she's waiting for. nobody else around. she doesn't offer a wave.] Late night, Qrow? You don't look like the early to rise type.
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Yeaaah, no, late and early pretty much stopped having meaning years ago. It's less "sleep" and more "occasionally passing out from exhaustion" at this point.
[Which is an alarmingly casual way of saying that you kind of have chronic insomnia issues but whatever. He's so used to it at this point the idea of having a Proper Schedule (TM) is actively low-key repulsive. One reason of several he has not bothered to get a job in Trench, honestly.
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[she just assumes he means coldblood stuff, since she hasn't had a solid night's sleep in several weeks now even without taking these memories into account. it's been great, and cool. (though it actually hasn't been too terrible this month, which really has been a reprieve. guess that's why her brain kicked it into overdrive.)]
Gotta say, if I didn't know you were from Remnant, this whole look would've given it away. [she looks at all the crucifixes he's decked out in and fixes him with a look halfway between skepticism and surprise. she didn't think they had the big JC there, but she never really asked.] So you pretty big into religion or is it just an aesthetic choice?
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Ugh. No, fuck gods. They ruin everything.
[Normally, he'd keep the following information on the downlow, but she already knows Oscar's whole deal so you know what? Screw it.]
...Remember that whole "forever war" situation Oscar told you about, back in Remnant? That's their fault. I don't mean in the sense of like, a religious war. I mean they literally blew up our moon and abandoned the planet, and then threatened to come back and finish the job if they judged us ~unworthy~ whenever their relics were put back together.
[So sorry, Anna, you kind of opened a can of worms with this one.]
The war's never going to end because the one trying to cause the apocalypse was literally cursed with immortality by them. If I ever get the chance to punch one in the face, it'll be satisfying as shit.
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[anna backs away just by one step and straightens up a little, like she can tell she's touched a very unexpected nerve. despite that, the whole... mythology here compels her. and what she's focusing on is not the creation myth (that seems to be a creation reality) or the eschatological threat. because no matter how realistic it all seems, those parts aren't the weirdest mythology she's ever heard. no, the thing that does get her solely because of how real it is is...]
They blew up the moon? What the fuck, just out of spite? "Good luck having tides and werewolves, assholes, see you in a millennium"? [she pushes her hair out of her face on instinct, like she's adjusting an eyepatch that isn't there.] Well, they sound like huge dicks. Hope you get to kick their asses when they come back.
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[He is not sure how this affects their tides tbh bc he is the farthest possible thing from a scientist, but he seems confused for a moment about the werewolves? Is that like those YA fantasy novels with the wolf faunus that can turn into humans sometimes? He vaguely recalls hearing Blake have very passionate opinions about those books to Yang at some point on their trek to Atlas, but that was before Jinn and everything that's happened since and he'd be damned if he can remember.
Among the benefits of being sober are keeping just enough presence of mind to occasionally avoid shoving your entire foot in your mouth, so he will wisely refrain from comment for once in his life.]
Assuming we don't all die first, anyway. But hey, if there's still an afterlife in Remnant, maybe that's another solid plan.
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[she's acting like it's something to be proud of, but with all the information she's received since then, it clearly isn't. she wonders how many people didn't want to do that to salem; ruby was probably one of them.]
C'mon, let's get inside somewhere. I'm cold enough already and it ain't getting any warmer.
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[Salem was only killable because of Deerington; if Ozpin could've killed her, the war would've ended a long time ago. Truthfully, Qrow has very little faith that they will defeat Salem or the Gods. But the kids haven't given up, so he's not allowed to either. Or at least, the version of himself still there isn't. He's relieved to leave it all behind.]
...Huh. Didn't realize you could get cold. [Due to the whole Robot Thing.] Yeah, sure.
[He scrubs at his chin stubble a moment, thinking.]
There's a place down the street I have a tab with. They let me eat, and I do chores and errands for them about once a week.
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[she puts her hands in her pockets and tilts her head upward in his direction, acknowledging the idea and silently agreeing with it.]
Everything's more complicated than it looks. Lay on, Macduff.
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[Will literally anything top being a squid? Qrow is not sure, but he expects to be proven wrong any time now.]
...Who's Macduff?
[Come on Anna does this look like a man who reads Shakespeare to you;;; it is unlikely he's read any work of literature that has not come in illustrated format at minimum in his entire goddamn life.]
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[she shrugs, the heavy shoulders of her coat rising and falling. it feels nice around her. maybe she'll make it part of her regular wardrobe even one the winter is gone.]
Saying the name of the play is also super cursed, if you believe theater tradition. Supposed to bring bad luck to anyone who says it.
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[He sort of harrumphs, irritably. It's not like how he went off about the gods before, but there's a distinct sense he's deeply disgruntled about this notion.]
Sounds like a pain to keep putting it on. How do people even get tickets? They call it "The Cursed Play" at the box office, or what?
[The whole play itself sounds kinda yikes too, like someone decided to write a whole play about Ironwood, except actually as a king rather than a wannabe one. Bleh. He really wants that damn pizza now.]
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[which she's almost impressed by, despite the clear signs that he doesn't want to think about anything like this right now.]
So what kind of a pizza guy are you? [she is desperate for another line of conversation while they find this place.] Pineapple, yes, no?
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Depends on the crowd. Sometimes I'm the kind of pizza guy who'll order pineapple just to mess with everyone else.
[Pineapple on pizza is an abomination against gods and man but he has probably picked at literal garbage pizza in bird form before so like. Sometimes you choose violence, because it's funnier. You know how it is right Anna.]
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[she knew that already, but she knows how to be appreciative. game recognize game.]
It's been long enough for me that I might just go with whatever for the hell of it. Pizza's like one of those real deep depression foods for me. [which makes it appropriate that they're going for it now.] So it's been a while. That and losing the whole... ability to get nutrition from food for a bit in the middle there.
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[Yes, the owner of the pizza place that Qrow's formed this deal with is a badass little old lady. She may or may not have intense Maria vibes. Qrow is nOT predictable, how dare you.]
Yikes. Guess that's one perk of having blood again, huh?
[listen,,, he just really enjoys food ok....now that he no longer drinks, junk food is like his last remaining vice...]
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[she looks around, trying to familiarize with these streets. with the Tower out and about lately, it's been hard to find her way around, but mercifully he seems to be taking pity on them. maybe he knows she's been up all night and she's not having a good time. maybe getting tight with Cloverfield has been a good idea so far.]
Or knowing your body won't later, but your head will now. [which is kind of the problem.]
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...Yeah. Knowing you can escape from everything for a while -- it's real easy to fall into.
[He's a little unsure how much she wants to talk about, though. She'd said she didn't want advice, and so that's why they're getting pizza, but here's the topic, rising to the surface again like yeast in bread.]
Getting used to being stuck with your thoughts is probably one of the hardest parts.
[...Aside the initial active withdrawal part, anyway. That sucked a whole lot.]
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Five years. [it comes out in a way that almost takes her by surprise.] That's how long my "while" was. Before I finally started pulling myself out of it and having to deal with my thoughts on their own.
[she's not looking at him when she says it, instead trying to pretend like she's still trying to find their pizza place.]
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Then the moment passes, and he rolls a shoulder.]
Must have been eleven, twelve years for me.
[That time is a muddle of grief and alcohol and the stress of keeping two little girls alive when their mother was gone. He's lost details like his own exact age when he gave up hope on finding Summer alive, or even finding a body to bring home.]
I'd only stopped a couple months when I first got drawn into the dream. Making it this far seemed kind of impossible back then.
[He doesn't want to say something trite like how she surely will be able to do it again if she's done it once before, or that he believes in her, or something like that. Really, he's not sure what to say. He's never exactly been to one of those support group things. He rubs at his neck.]
Look -- to be honest, I've got absolutely no clue how this works. This whole 'fellow drunks' thing. I'm probably the worst person to ever give anyone advice on how to unfuck their life, but uh. I get the feeling your original reasons for trying didn't make it out of the ocean with you, so...if you need anything, you got my number, I guess.
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sorry for the delay ahhh ... wanted to do this justice and then time got away from me lmao
NO WORRIES i understand
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