Log: Ongoing

[livingmyths.livejournal.com]

When; Friday Night
Rating; PGish
Characters; Rain livingmyths, Mat bloodygoodluck, Thomas harrysbackup, Tony morethanasuit, Romana lady_wandering, Chuck basstardchuck
Summary; The group gathers to help get Rain's mind back to normal.
Log;

It had been a long week. Rain hadn't spent this long just in one place in, well, as long as she could remember. As the days had gone on she'd become more and more confused, more and more convinced that the Bad Men were close and coming for her, more and more disoriented about everything. Thomas and Mat had done their best to keep her calm and settled - Thomas eating as much of the crazy as he could manage, which served the dual purpose of calming her and making her tired enough to sleep a good deal of the time.

Romana had been with Tony working to get herself back together enough to be of help to Rain and now felt that she'd be able to tackle the delicate job.

So here, with all of them in Rain and Mat's little house, it was time for the walls in Rain's mind to be rebuilt.

Comments

[livingmyths.livejournal.com]

Rain lay curled up on the bed, murmuring softly to herself - snatches of Lakota lullabies, nonsense rhymes, bits of stories she'd heard. She didn't always seem aware of what was happening around her, but an observant person would notice that she shifted to make sure she could see someone at all times.

[lady-wandering.livejournal.com]

Romana listened to Rain from a distance before moving to the bed. Rain's movements were a bit skittish, never letting someone out of sight for very long. Outwardly calm, internally a storm.

After a minute she moved to the bed and kneeled down, so that her eyes were level with Rain's.

"Hello, dear. How are you feeling tonight?"

[livingmyths.livejournal.com]

Rain smiled a little, eyes shifting to follow the movement of someone else. "Can't think. Head hurts. They're coming. I... I'm losing, Romana. I've been trying and trying but..."

She glanced away, distracted by movement, and totally lost track of what she'd been saying. "Thomas makes me better. But it's not good to do too much."

[lady-wandering.livejournal.com]

"Shhhhhh..." Romana hushed Rain, absently reaching out to pull the young woman's hair out of her eyes, using the light touch to establish a very light link. Just enough to take Rain's mental temperature.

"I talked to Thomas, you'll be fine."

[livingmyths.livejournal.com]

The inside of Rain's mind was like a forest overgrown and wild with beasts hiding behind every tree and danger everywhere.

"He's good, Romana," Rain said absently. "So good."

[lady-wandering.livejournal.com]

"He cares about you a great deal. We all do."

Romana kept running her fingers lightly through Rain's hair slowly, not going deep into her mind yet but still trying to get a better idea of where to begin.

"Rain? Do you want the bad men to go back into the dark? To go away?"

[ooc: probably going wait and see where the boys go before going too much farther...]

[livingmyths.livejournal.com]

Rain nodded, her eyes filling with tears. "Want to put them away where they can't hurt anybody anymore."

[morethanasuit.livejournal.com]

Tony waited outside, very displeased with having to actually wait in a different room, even more displeased that all these other people were here. But, they were Rain's friends so he would try to tolerate them. Really, he didn't mind Mat so much anymore but he was still unsure about Thomas and Chuck. That wasn't entirely true, he knew about Thomas and didn't trust him at all.

[basstardchuck.livejournal.com]

Chuck rubbed his temples. He was still tired from the last night, showing up at the tournament wasn't exactly the best idea of a rest, and he still had the entire night of partying while watching after Dawn and Serena. This was definitely not the best moment to start practicing his bedside manners. Not to mention he had no idea who those people were.
But Rain worried him and he wanted to make sure she's going to be alright. He could sleep during the weekend.

[bloodygoodluck.livejournal.com]

Mat was nervous about all of this. It didn't show on his face right now but he couldn't stop rolling his dice. He wasn't looking at them but they kept landing on the same roll. Like they were fixed. Only, he knew they weren't. It was just his bloody luck kickinging.

He wasn't sure he wanted Chuck here...

[basstardchuck.livejournal.com]

The sound of the dice was slowly driving him crazy. It wasn't as annoying as the ticking, but Chuck didn't have the best week and all the little things were simply pushing him to the edge.

He could really use a drink.

[bloodygoodluck.livejournal.com]

Toss, gather, toss, gather. He did this sometimes when he had to wait for something. Especially when it concerned someone Mat actually cared about. And he'd only chosen this over tossing a coin because he didn't feel like seeing it land on its side several times over.

[basstardchuck.livejournal.com]

He managed to control himself few more minutes before he snapped.

"Oh for God's sake, can you stop doing that?!"

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "The dice... It's extrememly annoying."

[bloodygoodluck.livejournal.com]

Mat intentionally looked at Chuck before rolling the dice one more time. When they settled, he sat back.

The look he gave him said it all. It was something like 'There. Happy?'

[basstardchuck.livejournal.com]

Chuck glared at him. Though there wasn't much fire in his look. He narrowed his eyes. If asked, he would say that yes, he was ecstatic.

"Thank. You," he said slowly instead.

[lady-wandering.livejournal.com]

"Then let's see what we can do about - "

Romana heard Chuck's outburst and turned toward the other room where Rain's friends and would be protectors were gathered. None of them appeared happy and several of them were bordering on open hostility.

It concerned her.

[livingmyths.livejournal.com]

Rain's anxiety level went up as she heard and felt the upset in the other room and she whimpered a little. "Don't want them mad."

[prodigalvampire]

Thomas sat in a corner, outwardly calm, but his eyes were watching the others around him. Chuck he'd spoken with over the phone, but didn't really know that well. Mat seemed harmless enough. At least he seemed reasonable.

His eyes kept falling to Tony. He didn't trust him to not blast him away while his back was turned. Something about the guy's demeanor said he wouldn't listen to reason, should the truth come out at last.

[lady-wandering.livejournal.com]

Romana forced the link a little deeper, hopefully pulling Rain's focus to her and began to probe at the dark edges of Rain's mind. "Don't worry about them, right now, we need to focus on -"

Now Romana was truly distracted by the men in the other room, and she pulled out of Rain's mind before her annoyance was transferred to the girl. They'd done quite enough emotion-sharing of late, Romana didn't want to add to it.

"Stay here, Rain, I'll be right back."

[livingmyths.livejournal.com]

Rain moved to be able to watch her as she left, scared to let her out of her sight. "'Kay, 'Mana."

[lady-wandering.livejournal.com]

Romana delicately ran a hand over Rain's head, poring all the reassurance she could into the gesture before going out to where the men were.

She delivered her demands quickly and softly, so that Rain wouldn't be able to hear the words, even if she was able to pick up on the tone, and returned as quickly as she was able.

[livingmyths.livejournal.com]

Rain reached out to hold onto the edge of her shirt lightly, needing to feel her there. "We gonna make them go back where they belong?"

[lady-wandering.livejournal.com]

Romana took Rain's hand from her shirt and held it, while her other hand strayed back to Rain's head, again stroking her head an re-establishing the link.

"Yes, we are, but I need you to show me where they're hiding so I can protect you from them. Can you do that?"

[livingmyths.livejournal.com]

Rain nodded and they were there inside her head. Rain reached back to take Romana's hand, clinging to it tightly as they stood in the middle of a wildly out of control forest. "We have to be very quiet," she told Romana. "So no one hears us."

As they walked, every time they brushed against a leaf or branch a memory assaulted Rain - her father yelling, threatening, telling her how ugly she was, how evil she was, what a freak she was. When she shied away from that the memories of the sexual assaults were waiting for her. She held tighter and tighter to Romana's hand, clearly terrified, but moving forward towards the darkest and most dangerous looking area.

[lady-wandering.livejournal.com]

Romana was nauseated at the memories she was seeing, several lifetime's worth of abuse heaped on one little girl. But she held fast to Rain's hand, offering regular squeezes of comfort as they moved on to the darkest part of Rain's mindscape.