Roleplay

Lorelai Ramon | Matt (ZyXeno)

The loud thud across the hall made her flinch. She wiped her tears, sniffling as she hauled herself to her feet.

Lorelai dabbed her eyes with the collar of her shirt, though she’d wiped away most of her tears.

She pulled a black hoodie over her white t-shirt and tucked her hands into her black jeans as she stepped outside.

She stood in front of Matt’s door for a long moment. She knew she looked like she’d been crying. And if he asked... she didn’t know if she had the heart to explain it to him.

But what if he was hurt? Lorelai sucked in a breath and knocked softly.

“Matt?” She called, her voice still trembling, “Are you okay?”

Matt was still on the ground, now laying on his stomach with his head buried into his arms because he gave up on the hammock. He heard some shuffling, a few sniffles, and then a knock at his door.

Oh no. She sounded like she had been crying. How the hell was he supposed to deal with that? He could not comfort someone to save his life. He would rather storm the Vatican than deal with emotions.

"I'm fine," he called back, rolling onto his knees before he uncoiled to his feet, stretching. He rubbed his hip with a grimace as he pulled open the door. That was gonna bruise later. "Just a small spill. Turns out...ahem...," he coughed into his arm. Yep, she definitely was crying. "Turns out you can't move too much in a hammock or it'll dump you onto the floor."

He shuffled awkwardly on his feet, looking anywhere but Lorelai. He could just ignore it, right? That's how he dealt with a lot of his past problems.... Yeah. Don't bring it up and it'll be fine.

Instead, he asked, "What are you doing up? I thought you called it a night?" All right, maybe that wasn't the right thing to ask. She was up because she had been crying, dumba*s.

Lorelai Ramon | Matt (ZyXeno)

Lorelai had been staring at the floor, but when he opened the door, she raised her silver eyes to him. Her eyes had been tinged red – like a blood moon – and there were still streaks of tears on her cheeks.

Her left hand tightened its grip on the black envelope that held her brother's final words to her.

"I was... reading..." she said quietly, her voice strained and trembling. She was exhausted alright, but she could rarely sleep soundly anymore. Her eyes stung when the letter's words echoed in her head again and she turned away, wiping her sleeve at the tears that slowly started to fall again. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean to disturb you..."

Phade

Phade was further down the hall so the sound of voices never actually reached her room. She shifted in the hammock her sketch book falling to the floor as she slept. The rock of the ship was familiar and lulling.

"No worries," Matt hummed, easily shrugging as he scratched the back of his neck.

Be cool, be cool, his mind chimed, but he knew he was gonna make this awkward somehow. He was used to killing other people, not comforting them. He was WAY out of his element here.

"I was the one that fell onto the floor," he grumbled out with an eye roll. He cleared his throat as he watched her turn away, opening and closing his mouth a few times before he said, "Why don't...erm...why don't you try to go get some rest? It's been...uhh...it's been a day, that's for sure."

People didn't like to mention that they were just crying, right? He thought he heard somewhere that it was a weird thing with their pride or whatever. The last time he cried was...well, he'd rather not think about it too much, to be honest. Not the most pleasant of memories, that one is.

Lorelai Ramon | Matt (ZyXeno)

Not that Lorelai had any pride to begin with...

She sighed. Maybe she should just stop being such a bother and go away. It was him she was supposed to be worried about — he was the one who could have potentially hurt himself. But instead, it was her causing a scene.

Lorelai wiped her eyes with her empty hand and then she muttered an apology.

“I didn’t mean to keep you up... sorry...” she probably wouldn’t even be able to fall asleep, but he didn’t have to suffer for it.

//so sorry! school kept me completely packed oops

"Fallin' on the floor basically kept me up," Matt shrugged. "I probably wouldn't have slept anyways. Not your fault at all. Do you...uhh...do you wanna talk about it or...?" He had no idea what he was doing.

Lorelai Ramon | Matt (ZyXeno)

No worries!//

Lorelai looked up at him. “If you’re willing to listen...” she whispered.

She hadn’t told anyone this story — after her brother died she’d had no one left. Few friends close enough to even talk to... but no one close enough to tell this story to. She assumed some would just think she’s crazy, others would probably think she would was making this up. But she wasn’t — something like this was too crazy to make up.

“I haven’t exactly had anyone to really... talk to...” she forced herself to meet his eyes. “Don’t feel like you have to talk about it with me... I don’t want to drag you into my stupid problems...”

Matt did all he could to look composed. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the frame of the door, crossing his legs as he lifted a brow to Lorelai. In all honesty, he looked like he was trying too hard. But this is what...friends did, right? Or acquaintance; they listened to the other's problems? Yeah, he supposed it was like that.

"Shoot," he shrugged. "Trust me, love, I have my fair share of problems. Adding your story to the list won't be a problem. I've also been told I'm a really good listener." Okay, that was a lie. He had a bad case of adhd and had his fingers cut off more than five times because of it.

Was he supposed to bring his own story to the table now? Or was he just supposed to listen to her tale? He would figure it out when the time came. He hoped. Probably.

Lorelai Ramon | Matt (ZyXeno)

Lorelai flinched at his using of ‘love.’

The word made her feel like she was back at home with her brother and his friends that would come over all the time for tea and play cards. Someone... what was his name? Thomas — that was it. Thomas used to call her ‘love’ just to annoy her.

But then the day before her brother left... they didn’t even come to say goodbye.

Lorelai had pulled herself together enough so she could lean against the wall across from the doorway, and the hallway was small so she was only like three or four feet away.

“I... well... I used to have an other brother... his name was Adrian... he worked for a branch in the British Government that I never knew the name of... and one day they... sent him out... he was gone for weeks and weeks... and he wrote these letters to me.” She held the one in his hand up, “and then... one day they stopped coming... and he lost communication with his team... he was just gone... disappeared completely without a trace... this is all I have left of him...”

She sighed, “after a year of waiting and getting nothing... I moved down to America and have been here ever since...” Lorelai swallowed, “I already had a forensics degree so that’s what I went into... I wanted to solve these mysteries of people’s death so their loved ones can have a chance to sleep at night. Because I’ve always had trouble doing just that with Adrian’s disappearance hanging over my head.”

Pressing her lips together, she stared at the floor. She had a tendency to do that... “I’m sorry... everyone probably has a sob story worse than mine... this sounds ridiculous now that I’m saying it out loud...”