AlteredTundra — Roleplayer Guild

As the diluted sounds that emitted from the town and the fireworks that exploded up in the sky were muffled through the walls of the mess hall, Wesley could hear it all. It sounded like everyone was having a good time. Even those who were at camp probably were gathered together in some way and were enjoying the company that they kept.

All except Wesley. And it was by choice, obviously.

Okay, that's a lie. The choice was rarely something he ever had, but he didn't know how to be the kind of person that would socialize with others like him. Sometimes he didn't even think he was like the other kids, or that they would like him. Between the energetic ones and those who almost frightened Wesley, part of him just wanted to stay close to his vest until he went home, but the voice of his brother always seemed to echo in his mind whenever he felt those feelings consume him.

Make friends, it would say to him.

Don't isolate yourself.

Sure, there have been moments when Wesley tried to come out of his shell and not fall back into the same habits he always had, but it was difficult. He was the one his father put all of the expectations on and that often led him to spend a lot of time alone. And sometimes, in his solitude, he'd find comfort in the photos he was taking. The photos he was looking at right now.

Wesley moved by the window and heard the sounds. He took photos of the sky. First with his phone. He wanted to snap some test shots before he used his actual camera, the one with polaroids. He wanted to get the angle right so he didn't waste a shot.

But as he was aligning his phone with the sky, an alert came up from his E-mail. It was from someone named Jericho. They were talking about something that he had no idea about. 

No, maybe he did? It was such a blur to him. Dreams of something he was convinced by the adults that he fantasized. "It was over six years ago, right?" Wesley thought aloud. That sight of two monsters. The sight of a red dinosaur and a giant preying mantis-looking creature. It was something that visionaries in the movie industry would think of. So surely it wasn't something that actually happened...Right?

Wesley shook his head as he closed out of his email and went back to his camera. He had the shot of where in the sky, so now all he had to do was take the shot with his actual camera.

But just was going to just that, his phone stopped working. Not in the way that apps typically failed. It completely stopped working. It shut off without warning and that stood out to Wesley for a myriad of reasons. The biggest one, thought? He had just finished charging it back at the cabin. So why did it completely shut off.

He tried to turn it back on, but after a few failed attempts, the mystery just got weirder and weirder. He was just grateful that his camera wasn't digital. A classic camera that could take normal photos.

I wonder if anyone else had this trouble...

That thought stayed in the back of his mind for a few moments until it weighed on him and then it weighed heavier and heavier until he couldn't take it anymore. As he gathered his things, he stepped outside. The sounds from the city became even louder and Wesley just looked around for...anyone who might've been experiencing the same thing.

		
A @metanoia & @Aces Away Collab || Tw. Mentions of Suicide and child abuse

On nights like this, Mika found himself drifting back to the past. Thinking about the chilly nights spent in New York. the chill that always came in pair: both with the weather and how often his father’s red-hot temper and the voice that could reach even those miles away that came off as such a paralyzing coldness, he couldn’t help but think about it.

As he was sitting up top of the Gonzalez house and just watched the dark sky, the moon and stars familiarizing themselves with each other, he was tuning in to that Mei Midnight’s thing. He was flipping through a few channels and happened to catch it. He didn’t think that this old stereo had her...whatever you called it on its frequency, but tonight had been full of so many weird happenings that Mika shrugged it away. He usually would try and question it and maybe get to the bottom of why his vivid thoughts were taking shape and why he could still hear his father’s temper flare as if he was screaming right at him.

But it made very little sense. It also made little sense as to why he was feeling exceptionally reminiscent of the past. Like how he was thinking back to the last time he saw Veronika.

It was a year before he came to live with Big Rey. It was a year before his father made a mistake he couldn’t undo. Alexei was not only someone Mika cherished over everyone else but, she was his oldest friend.

Was? She is his oldest friend. 

Veronika Petronova.

He can still remember how much lip she gave him. Not on his lip but how she talked to him. Their families were allies in the war between the Russian Elite. So they were always together. Always near each other. She was the only member of his crew that wasn’t a boy, but damn it if Ronnie wasn’t a touch son of a bitch when it mattered. Among his group of hardasses: between Alexei, Vlad, Vik, and Pavel, Ronnie was the toughest out of all of them. She was fearless and unapologetic. She could just as easily win you over with her tenderness and surprise you with a kick in the yaitsa (balls) if you weren’t careful.

She was everything to Mika. They say you shouldn’t fall for your friends and Mika probably didn’t even know that he had, but when he fell for Ronnie, he did so without realizing it.

And then…

“Why did you do it?” He heard himself ask. Obviously there was nobody there to answer. Why would he even get an answer? “Not like you’re even here anymore, Ronnie. It’s not like you can actually hear me.”

”Don’t say things that aren’t true, Misha!”

“Oh great, now I’m hearing things. Next thing that’ll happen is--”

And then an icy feeling passed through him. At the moment it did, Mika saw those familiar eyes flow past him and he turned around, looking at all angles: behind him, above, side to side, and repeating until he exhausted himself only for him to see her to his right, waving at him like the smartass that he remembered she was.

“This is a dream, isn’t it? God, I knew I shouldn’t have snuck that last slice of Dolce de Leches. And now I’m suffering for it.”

There was a laugh from the person he thought was Ronnie. “Since when did you get all fancy? Mr ‘I can barely spell my own birth name’. You sure have grown, huh?”

It was just a dream. Just a dream and Mika was going to wake up to the sound of Ley pounding on his door for eating last piece that was meant for her. 

“Miiiishaaaaaa!~” She teased and kept singing until he paid attention.

“There’s no way you’re real. You’re...not here. You haven’t been here for over five years.”

“And yet, here I am in the flesh...so to speak.” She laughed and Mika’s heart sank a few levels. 

“Blyat. There’s just no way you’re here.” 

He was still in a state of disbelief. And that was rare for Mikhail zima. If it was his imagination, then all he had to do was blink a few times or shake his head, and that would be the end of it.

So he did. 

One blink. Two blink. Three blinks

One shake. Two shake. Three shak--

“You know you look pretty stupid doing that. It’s like we’re kids again and right after you tried your first sip of actual alcohol, you couldn’t handle it.” Ronnie laughed, leaning in front of Mika as their faces were right next to each other. “Or are you just nervous about being near me again?” She asked, looking at him with an expression mixed with curiosity and that same show of her personality that Mika remembered. “Oh I know! You remembered how often I used to kick your ass at kickball and you want to push that memory back! I mean I can’t blame you for that. I was pretty amazing. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to--”

“Oh for the love of--” Mika finally acknowledged Ronnie or the Ghost of Ronnie and looked at her. “That’s not why and you know it. Or do you not even remember?”

The air suddenly became thick with tension as both of them fell silent. She looked at him and he looked at her. Their gaze had said more than any of her rambling or him trying to ignore that this was happening could ever do. The unspoken words between them, the things he never got to say to her and the confusion he left for him and at such a young age too.

“Yeah…” She spoke, looking down at her pale legs and feeling only what she assumed were residual feelings of guilt from when she had been alive. “I know.”

Mika couldn’t look at her right now so he looked up, seeing the sky dance with the stars and moon. Or maybe that’s just what he wanted to see right now. “I don’t know why you never told me, Ron. Were things really so bad for you?”

“It was..complicated. I guess, I don’t even know why it happened. It just did.” The sadness in her voice was obvious.

And that was what angered Mika the most. Thinking back, he never saw any of the signs. She was feisty and caring, so how come he never noticed it? “I just wish you could have told me. I wish--”

“Wish what? That you could have stopped it? Misha, you and I were just kids. You could barely stop people from ripping on your father. Or those bulgarian punks who tried messing with your sisters. What happened..that wasn’t your fault. My dad...and…” Again, she fell silent. The words too hard to say aloud.

So Mika would continue for her. “I know, he was a bastard. Mine’s a bastard too. But I didn’t think it was that bad for you.”

As she let those words sink in and she looked to Mika, Ronnie gave her friend a smile. “Misha..there wasn’t anything you or anyone else could have done. I hope you know that. My dad was the accelerant, but he didn’t deliver the final blow. I had more issues than I care to admit. I guess now, in whatever this whole thing is with me being here and apparently looking like how I would have if I had lived, what’s done is done. I know nobody could have stopped me. You understand? It’s not your fault I took my own life.”

Hearing it after so many years made Mika angry, but finally looking at her and he saw the tears flow down her ghostly face. It wasn’t that she was a literal ghost because Ronnie had always been pale, but seeing the genuine emotion on her face sent a whirlwind of emotions -- ones Mika thought he had moved on from. 

For a lot of nights after it happened, he kept thinking about what he could’ve done to change it all? What could have he done? He didn’t know then and even hearing it he still didn’t know. Losing Ronnie did a lot of harm to him. Maybe it was the catalyst as to why he got into a fight with the son of his father’s rival and why he ended up in Edenridge. Or maybe he was just destined to become the disappointment. Any of those felt like the right answer, but how fucked was it that he thought any of that was right? How fucked was he to think that her dying was right?

It wasn’t right, but Ronnie was the kind of person who always saw the good even in the darkest days.

“So what do I do now?”

And she was gone. Just like that. She came to assure him that it wasn’t his fault or that Mika being here and she wasn’t somehow wasn’t his doing.

As he watched the final stages of the sunrise, Mika was left with so many unsaid words, but they would just be a repeat of what had already been said. Maybe this was the time for him to catch some sleep if he could, but he didn’t feel tired. Even if he wanted to, there was no doubt that his family would be waking up soon and he just couldn’t think straight right now. Maybe he should call Lex? Or maybe he should try and summon Ronnie back? Would that be a better option? Try and get her back? No...Mika couldn’t do that.

Minutes and minutes went by as he was so deep in his own self-inflicted misery, constantly wondering  what should he do now?

"Well, don't you just look cheery," Danny's voice faded in from his left, the boy also sitting on the roof with his arms thrown behind him for support. He grinned at Mika sadly from his spot. "'M guessin' I'm not the only one who decided ta visit?"

He wasn’t so much surprised that Danny had decided to visit him. Honestly, he didn’t know what the fuck was happening, but given that Ronnie, of all people, would come to him in some manner (maybe as a manifestation of his thoughts), but seeing someone who he genuinely bonded with above most, well it was enough to make Mika actually shed a couple of tears.

And he did when he brought the kid into an embrace. It was sudden and without warning. Mika seldom did this because, well, he had the rep of someone who showed emotion like a textbook case of a man with severe toxic masculinity, but he was alone on the roof with Danny and...it was Danny.  “I missed you, brat.” Mika said into Danny’s shoulders. God, even still smelled like that kid’s second hand leather and two different types of smoke; a bit of Decky's scent with the addition of Danny's own favorite wrap flavor- grape Swishers- and the fireplace the Boaz brothers had in their apartment. Talk about bringing him back.

"Ah shit, 'm makin' everyone cry t'night," Danny sniffed, gripping Mika tight and burying his head into his shoulder much like he had done earlier with Decky. Mika was just as much his brother as Decky, and Sonny, and the rest of the Serpents and even Charlie. There was nothing that would keep Danny from showing affection to them whenever he was able, for as long as he could get away with. He didn’t see Mika cry much, but he had a feeling that he and Decky had seen it more often than most, having built up the necessary trust to be let past that wall. “‘M sorry I couldn’t get here earlier, I’ve had a lotta visits ta get through.”

And it was true, he’d spent a considerable amount of time with Decky, and the other three Southies once Charlie’d shown up. Then he’d hopped over to visit Sonny; the older man was a drunken, faded mess when he’d arrived, and Danny learned that Sonny had gotten plenty of visits from past crew members and even his parents. Once he was able to make sure Sonny was away from weapons and safely puking his guts out in the bathroom, Danny had worriedly hopped to Phil and had his nerves calmee as the man cried and cradled his small form like he would turn to smoke. Beau and his wife were much the same, and Danny reveled in the parental warmth that he could only feel metaphysically.

Then it was off to the other Serpents, though he saw how happy Creed and Jokes were through the curtains, their family finally full once more, so he simply smiled and focused on his next location. They didn’t need his help tonight. Prof and Fins were doing ok, but they had just had a baby and were passed out long before he showed up in the dead of night to say hi. Duke, however, was there on the couch, baby bundled in his arms and cooing at it in a manner no one would ever really see outside the safety of that apartment. He was also relaxed in a way he never is in public, so Danny lamented over the fact that he couldn’t scare a man holding an infant in his arms. He stayed and talked with Duke for almost an hour, gushing over the baby and getting his updates on the Booker family. That led him to visiting Dutchess and Ransom, who were in the middle of smoking themselves stupid with Molotov and Meredith. After that it was off to see Lanie, who let him watch over her baby while she bawled her eyes out on his shoulder, arms wrapped around him.

Busy didn't cut it.

Now, though, he was on his final visit of the night, and he could feel himself fading the closer the sun came to rising.

Fast forward a few minutes spent not living up to stereotypes that most associate Mika with and showing a lot of emotion with the only person he could get emotional like this and not feel like he had to punch a shoulder, Mika was able to look at Danny’s face without getting filled up on said emotions. “Can’t say I’m surprised you’d be busy; a lot of people miss that almost-too-cute of a face to hate. Present company included.” 

Truth be told, he missed Danny more than he was letting on. Seeing his face brought him back to a time when his life wasn’t so fucked. 

Okay, that was a lie. 

He was actually in a solid place now. Of course, he still had the worry of his father’s son creeping around any chance he felt like tormenting Mika. Hyde was an SOB in so many different ways and his torture was creative and almost genius in its own twisted way. But with Lex and them living together in the same building that a lot of Serpent and allies live, Mika could say life was good. Tonight just happened to be special because the time he found himself plagued by thoughts and prayers of the past would be when he was visited by both his darkness and what he has always considered his light.

“I’m honestly just grateful for this time. Shit’s been a roller coaster. Sometimes it’s wack and then sometimes it’s just wacky.” He laughed as he glanced up at the sky. It was still dark, though specs of light were starting to break through, but he didn’t know if that was good or not.

"Almost too cute?" Danny scoffed while smirking and staying leaned up against Mika. "I'm fuckin' adorable! Everyone says it!" He nudged Mika's shoulder, missing the ability to feel the warmth all his brothers provided. "I'm grateful too. I needed ta get a lotta your heads on straight, one way or another. Ya guys gotta stick together when I'm gone again, yeah?" He asked, closing his eyes as his head dropped onto Mika's shoulder. He probably had another minute or two before he was gone. He didn't fix anyone tonight, maybe kicked them towards a better path but definitely not fixed. Nothing can get fixed in a night; not Decky's drug issues, or Poppy's mental state, or Jade's guilt and worries. Not what Charlie did to all of them. Not the holes that were left.

But they can work towards it. They can fill the holes in over time, if they all have each other. So Danny decided to ask for one thing he never dared to when he was alive. The one thing no Southies dare ask for.

"Promise me?"

Mika smiled at Danny’s request…no, maybe it was more of a plead than a request?

It felt strange for the Zima boy. As he stared off into whatever was in front of him, which happened to be the tracks that separated the Southside and the Northside, it always made him laugh how there could be such little space between them, yet be worlds apart. It was a funny thing because this life that he lived, the life of being Ivan Zima’s son as well as Big Rey Gonzalez’s son (though not by blood) had always defined him and confined him to this life. So, in a way, he had always stuck with his own kind. Maybe it’s why he never allowed himself to admit what he felt for Cece or let her know what he felt once upon a time.

Not that he felt any reason to linger about her. Danny’s plead just caught him off guard if he was honest and forced a sentimental reminiscence to consume him. Truth of the matter was that Danny didn’t need to ask. ]“Silly kid..” He muttered, smiling as he leaned into Danny while keeping his eyes forward. “You never need to ask. Southside for life, right?” Maybe famous last words, but they were ones Mika stood by more than anything. They were his family and he’d die for them if need be.

Danny smiled, eyes still shut as he let out a sigh he didn't need. "For life." He echoed, before his weight disappeared from Mika's side, leaving the man alone with the newly risen sun.

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