She'd run out of space to run away in, and this was the last dead end. Just... this, with so much storage, things broken and cleaned up and fixed and put away again, and the punching bag hanging from the ceiling in the middle of everything like an accusation.
(Are you planning to go hit anything?
Wasn't that what she did?)
Octavia had ignored it. Had paced, had -- pulled out some of the boxes that Magnus had packed all the things from the old apartment into, had opened them, had started... doing what? Sorting them, like she was in any state to know what she would want to keep, like the urge wasn't there to dump them all into the ocean and herself right along after them. It was desperation for a distraction, something to do that could somehow take away the feeling like someone had unceremoniously torn off the top layer of her skin.
She'd only stopped when her gasps for breath actually turned into hyperventilating.
She'd been sitting on the cold floor, since then, still clutching one of the books from the boxes. Feeling safer than she had up in the galley with the others, maybe, but not better. The price of safety was high when it was built on avoiding being vulnerable by separating yourself from the ones that made you that way.
(But they'd let her go, too.
And she kept thinking about the hug she hadn't dared to interrupt by calling out. And she felt resentment, then hated herself for it within the same breath.)
no subject
Had been, for a while.
She'd run out of space to run away in, and this was the last dead end. Just... this, with so much storage, things broken and cleaned up and fixed and put away again, and the punching bag hanging from the ceiling in the middle of everything like an accusation.
(Are you planning to go hit anything?
Wasn't that what she did?)
Octavia had ignored it. Had paced, had -- pulled out some of the boxes that Magnus had packed all the things from the old apartment into, had opened them, had started... doing what? Sorting them, like she was in any state to know what she would want to keep, like the urge wasn't there to dump them all into the ocean and herself right along after them. It was desperation for a distraction, something to do that could somehow take away the feeling like someone had unceremoniously torn off the top layer of her skin.
She'd only stopped when her gasps for breath actually turned into hyperventilating.
She'd been sitting on the cold floor, since then, still clutching one of the books from the boxes. Feeling safer than she had up in the galley with the others, maybe, but not better. The price of safety was high when it was built on avoiding being vulnerable by separating yourself from the ones that made you that way.
(But they'd let her go, too.
And she kept thinking about the hug she hadn't dared to interrupt by calling out. And she felt resentment, then hated herself for it within the same breath.)
Octavia had been down in the hold for a while.
And would be for a long time still.