2024-01-05: .our codependence is our expression of lovE
- Log: .our codependence is our expression of lovE
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Elisa Kafim
- Where: The Photon Power Labs - Empty Meeting Room
- Date: 2024-01-05 (ICly mid-late January 0098)
- Summary: Yuliana rings Elisa in a mess, after discussing her traumas with Sayaka and Leina grows too much for her and she retreats to an empty room. Because Yuliana is upset, Elisa is upset, too, but she manages to calm Yuliana down enough to give their efforts a chance. It's very hard for them to be apart...
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana's nested down in what looks to be an empty meeting room; most of the lights are off, and she's wrapped up in a blanket which Sayaka gave her before they left, curled up on one corner of a couch.
And she is, naturally, crying. Why wouldn't she be crying?
She asked Leina and Sayaka to leave her alone, so she's alone -- but she's not really alone; even leaving the extradimensional pressure constantly bearing down on her aside, Yuliana still has her phone.
She manages to operate it, even, after sitting there feeling miserable for a while. She untangles her tentacles from her bomber jacket to grasp her phone, because her hands are trembling, and it would be terribly embarrassing if she dropped it. Of course, she remembers Elisa's number by heart.
"Elya?" Yuliana sniffs, her face illuminated primarily by the phone's light, dim on the screen. A scarce moment after she confirms that is her wife, she wails: "Elyaaaaaaa!!"
Teary and pathetic, Yuliana blubbers: "I came to someone's house and I keep attacking them in it and they keep saying they're not mad but what if they're mad and I'm TRYING to be nice but it's not what they WANT and I don't GET IT and this sucks!"
So, evidently, help-seeking is going great.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Of course she's crying! But Elisa isn't. Elisa is waiting, pacing, walking back and forth as she senses through a dark mirror the feelings of her wife. And there, the phone--
"You are crying," Elisa says immediately. "My darling," she says, and there is Yuliana blubbering about it.
"There there, my darling. You are so brave to be dealing with this at all."
She considers. "Have they harmed you in any way?" she asks, barely contained.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Nnnh," Yuliana moans, as she shakes her head. "No-- no, they -- they didn't do anything bad, not really. They just, they wanted to figure out how to help, and, so we were talking about -- about it, and I got upset, and --"
She hiccoughs, rubbing at her face with the blanket. "Y--you know, Leyasha even hugged me," she says, in some strained effort to reassure her wife. "It -- it was very sweet... I made sure not to bother her with myself after that."
Yuliana swallows, and adds: "She said I was being brave, too... and this was the hardest bit. It is hard, Elya. I'm scared! Leyasha trusts Sayaka, but -- but what if she turns against me?!" She takes another jagged breath, and hugs her blanket around her. "But... I guess she gave me this..." The blanket, presumably. It's branded with the Photon Power Labs' insignia!
"Was this just -- stupid?" Yuliana asks, reaching out to the glass of her screen. "Should I just come home? I'm so embarrassed. I was trying to be, reasonable, no one was attacking me, but I still... messed everything up!" Oh, no, an I-statement.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"I see..."
Elisa's own anxiety through that dark window seems to lessen. She listens, though. Her face is lit by candlelight. "A hug, was it? Well, that was... good of her," she says, and manages to keep out of her voice the 'like stepping on a bug' aspect of the sentiment.
"If she turns on you then I will kill her," Elisa supplies helpfully. "But I do not believe that she will... She could have handed you over to her corporate allies, and she did not."
A pause. She wants to tell Yuliana to just come home. She does. That's absolutely what she wants. But...
"...No," Elisa says. "You may always return when you wish. But we sent you because they might have answers that I... lack," she says, with effort.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I suppose it's hard for her," Yuliana grumbles, "but she made the effort, anyway. I-I think it was nice..." She could probably be convinced that it wasn't nice, but who would do something so dastardly?
Anyway.
Yuliana smiles, when Elisa helpfully suggests she'd kill Sayaka. It does make her feel better, these days. "Oh, Elya," she sighs, fondness overtaking her grief, for a moment. "You're right..."
She runs her fingers down the screen, as if she could reach though and grasp her wife. With no one else is she so pained by the distance a phone dictates. "Elya," she says, softly, again. "You're right, again... I'll try to trust them, for you, zhenushka." And is that better than trusting them on their merits? "But I think it may be a long process, since they're even talking about pressuring the Republic... I couldn't stand to stay here forever. We'll just have to organise my visits to this place, all right...?"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa could do that. She thinks about doing that. But in the end, she doesn't do that.
"It likely is, but she is reaching out for you. It gives me hope for her potential. For now, I think it is fine to continue with her."
Of course she'd kill for Yuliana!
Then, she reaches to the screen as well. "And I am trusting them for you," she says. "If they do harm you, tell me. But if they don't..." Yes. "It may be a process. But we will get through that together. Continued visits are... preferable, to an extended stay, I would say."
"So yes, we can do this. Hang on, my darling. I am sure that you can make it through their difficulties."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Yes," Yuliana reassures herself with Elisa's approval, "it's fine. I don't really understand her, but I don't think Leyasha means me harm... there weren't even any authorities here with her, you know." Which is good to know, given how Leina is a cop.
Yuliana tears up, again, this time just because she can see her fingers touching her wife's fingers but she can't feel her. She is filled with the passing urge to SMASH the screen for its impudence, but her hand just gets so far as balling to a fist before she sees Elisa's image past her own fingers, and sighs, sagging back down. "I, I hate being apart from you," she says, her voice wobbling again. "This damn phone isn't enough if it's you, Elya...!"
But she shakes her head, and scrubs at her face, again. "N--no, I'm okay," she insists, her voice tight and thin. "I'm okay. I'll just stay here a little longer, then I'll come back, okay? Then I'll come back. And -- and it won't be too bad, because, I'll be back soon, okay? I can handle this, I just..."
She just can't handle this alone.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
It is important that Leina not have such things with her at times like this. Elisa wouldn't forgive her for certain possible actions. It is a risk, allowing this at all. "Good," Elisa says though.
And she notices the way that she almost smashes it... But, "I understand. I hate it as well. If I knew a better method... I would employ it. But we must see you safe while I search for such a thing."
"Yes. You will return soon," Elisa says, and her hand twitches, for the difficulty. For the possibility that it is not the case.
"Remember. I will be with you soon. And I will come for you, if needed."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
And isn't Elisa being so generous, taking that risk?! She's so impressive...!
"It never used to bother me," Yuliana sighs, "but I was talking to other people, then... so the distance was fine. I don't know how I'm supposed to go to sleep without you, Elya..." And from the dismal, downcast way Yuliana says it, it won't be Elisa's wife who'll stop her from returning to Elisa's side.
She smiles, though, head canting to the side as she gazes at her screen. "I know," she says, gently. "I know you'd come for me, Elya. But if you appeared out of nowhere, it would probably scare them... it's unreasonable, but Sayaka did welcome me into her house, so I suppose we should try to be considerate guests." Naturally, Elisa is also their guest. That's just taken as a given, since Yuliana is. They're a package deal.
"It's hard for you, too, right...?" Yuliana can guess -- doesn't need to guess, really -- what tension twitches Elisa's fingers, that way. "I must have frightened you, carrying on like that... but I'm okay, really. I feel better now I'm talking to you..." And she does seem to have settled down remarkably, since the start of the call.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Yes. Other people are... different," she says. "With us, it is more of a hardship." A pause. "Well, you need only say the word and I shall come to you. But..."
But she is aware that Yuliana is right about this. If they spook them, they lose this chance. And that means...
"Yes," Elisa agrees. "We shall be... considerate. That is what we shall be."
Elisa when directly prompted does admit, "It is." A pause. "You did. But I do not blame you. You have reason to be anxious. This is a difficult thing, being asked of you."
"...But if you feel better for it, then all is well."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"It's s-so hard," Yuliana agrees, the word choking up for all its emotion.
She wants, more than anything, for Elisa to appear beside her. She could even rationalise it away by saying that no one is in this room, so how would they know?! But she knows as well as Elisa does that people are easily spooked, and chances may be cruelly stolen away.
And so she nods, when Elisa agrees with her about being considerate.
"It's so hard," she says, again, sinking back into the couch, the camera shifting as her tentacles coil around to a more comfortable position. "... but if you think it's the better course of action, I'll keep trying my best, Elya. And I guess it's true that they're making an effort, too... they did listen to me when I said I needed to rest." As hard as it is to give someone else credit, Sayaka and Leina haven't done any wrong by Yuliana, not really.
"I don't know what's wrong with me... that it's so difficult to believe in that," she adds, with a weary sigh.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa could do much, if she only appeared there. But she will not yet.
Not yet.
"It is," Elisa agrees, ,"And... I do." A pause. "They did, at that. You are in a comfortable enough space?" A pause.
"....It is not a problem with you," Elisa decides. "You have been betrayed often and badly. It is natural to have difficulty trusting."
"But for now, we must give them this chance."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
It's difficult, for Elisa, Yuliana is sure, but she's willing to commit to the benefits of their current course of action. It's a relief, really; if Elisa didn't believe they could help her, Yuliana doesn't know how she could. She smiles, and lifts the snake holding her phone up, to tilt it around the meeting room and show it to Elisa. "It's a little dark," she explains, as the camera struggles to relay the room under present lighting conditions, "but I wanted it that way... my head's hurting. It's one of the lab's meeting rooms, usually, I suppose... but it was the closest thing available, and the lounge is comfortable enough. And no one's bothered me... since I asked them to leave me alone for a while."
Yuliana's face appears in the camera, again, as she pulls her tentacle back in closer to her shoulder. "You're right... it's hard for me," she says, her hand reaching out for her screen again. Her fingers rest there, at the side of the glass. "I have a trusting heart," and it's Elisa who said that, but Yuliana relates it as if it's just a fact about herself, "but bad things always happen... oh, it's hard not to feel miserable, Elya."
She sighs, again, deeply, as if the weight of the world crushes at her shoulders.
(Not this world, but...)
"But we should give them a chance," she echoes her wife, again. "We should give them a chance." As if it's not Sayaka who's giving her a chance, bringing her here.