@vdova ; video

[waytodie]

[Her hair is in two messy twin braids. Her eyes are glassy. The sharp-eyed might notice she's probably, definitely drunk. The less-so might just assume she's overly tired. Her tongue presses into her cheek as she considers how to start this one, but in the end she just rips the bandaid off quickly: ]

So, tell me, how is it that you handle grief?

[She probably won't be elaborating on why she's asking, unless she has a certain level of familiarity with you, but you can try. People closest to her probably already know what this is really about: Her sister is gone. From Moorecroft. From Etraya. From the top side of the dirt. Gone and back to dead, and Yelena is spiraling.]

Comments

@geraniums

[rootlessly]

...I don't know that it's something you deal with, really. At least, as far as making it go away, anyway.

[Instead it lives in your skin, your bones, burrows into your very being and nests there for decades, a century and more until you no longer remember who you were before it.]

I'm sorry you're hurting so much, Yelena. Do you want any company? Or--snacks to eat by yourself, maybe? Haha.

[Or, you know, water for the inevitable hangover.]

video, un: hawkeye

[westcoasts]

( they haven't spoken, have they? but he's seen her around — hard not to, given how few there are of them in etraya, relatively speaking. so there's that, and then there's the other reply to the post which tells him everything he needs to know.

yelena. )

You don't. ( handle it — or at least, clint's never done especially well with handling it. ) You just figure out how to not let it consume you. It takes time.

[waytodie]

Oh.

[Her tone is flat, and she can't help the way her lips form a tiny pout. She wanted... something else. Something better than that. At least right now, later she'll appreciate the honesty of his answer, probably.

She doesn't look too terribly receptive when he mentions company, but she does seem to consider it a little more when he mentions snacks-- which really... would be an easy in to providing company, if he's careful about it.]

Has anyone found decent ice cream in this place?

[waytodie]

[She squints at the name. She recognizes it, but he doesn't look the same. She might poke at him over it sometime, but now... is not that time. Instead, she just points in his general direction and says: ]

That. How do you do that part?

[westcoasts]

( he doesn't look the same, she doesn't look the same. that's nothing new, not given the inordinate amount of not-people-he-knows-but-sort-of-people-he-knows in etraya.

it's fine.
(it's not fine)

and is this a conversation clint especially wants to have over the network? no. but here they are.

his gaze follows her finger — or as much as he can, given it's video — before the corners of his lips twitch, and he lifts his shoulders in the slightest of shrugs. it's not meant dismissively, it's just—

it's a lot. )

It's not really something you can force. Grief's reflective, right? It's processing everything you had and everything you could've had, which means it's gonna suck for a while. Which means they—. ( mm, no. ) Which means she meant something to you. ( punctuated by a pause, longer this time, and— ) Don't be alone.

[waytodie]

No, processing all of that, I- it's- [She huffs softly and scrubs both hands over her face, pressing her fingers against her eyes with a deeper groan then.] I don't want to do that- I don't know how to do it.

[She drops her hands from her face and props her chin in one hand. He's being difficult. He's annoying. Right, maybe. But annoying.] I'm not. Not... physically, at least...

[She's not sure she has people here that can support her through this. Not when it's the third time she's lost her. This isn't something she's supposed to just... keep living through, over and over again, but here she is anyway.

The switch doesn't go unnoticed. The question is a little suspicious, a little accusatory, but he seems like the type that can probably take a snappish tone, so she isn't particularly worried about upsetting someone's delicate sensibilities, here.] ...what do you know?

[westcoasts]

It's 'cause there's not an easy answer. ( how clint had reacted to bobbi's death hadn't been the same as how he'd reacted to janet's, hadn't been the same as how he'd react to nat's. ) I don't know if it's not something that even has an answer, it just—. It depends. On who it's about. On who you are.

( an abrupt pause and a breath in because clint's aware, acutely, that this is public. )

I've spent some time being angry. Spent some time being self-destructive. ( is probably the best way of putting it, is probably the easiest way of putting it. ) Spent some time refusing to believe that it is what it is.

( which is easier when you've had experiences of people you care for not staying dead. it doesn't lessen the impact, doesn't make it easier — might, in some ways, make it worse, because it means there's always that hope. blunt refusal and denial. it's not the best mix. )

Handling grief doesn't mean handling it well. ( which, probably, is what she means.

but then the question—. )

She told me. About what happened.

@amidala

[politicallyinclined]

(This is a heavy question for obvious reasons. Padmé isn't going to probe for answers from Yelena - she is going through enough.)

I give myself time. I surround myself with loved ones or items that give me comfort. The first part is the most important. Let yourself grieve; there is no shame in it.

[waytodie]

Who I am is tired of losing people I care about. [Yelena has always been a little more emotional than she'd like to be, and now is no different. She can feel the tears stinging her eyes again and she might have to switch this to a text conversation if she can't keep it at bay.

She drags a hand through her hair and for a moment, she's not actually looking at the screen, but down at the table or desk or wherever she's sitting at the moment. Until he says... that.

Because it clicks, then. In a way that reading the name hawkeye hadn't made it click.

She looks up at him on the screen again.]

Oh. You're the wrong Clint she told me she saw, so soon after getting here, aren't you?

[waytodie]

[She appreciates it, honestly. The advice is more than enough to suffice for what she's looking for at the moment.]

How much time? How do you know how much time you need?

[She wants to scream. And yell. She doesn't wan't to grieve, she just wants her sister back. Her mouth shifts into a pout, trying her best not to start crying again.]

[westcoasts]

I—. ( whatever interjection he'd been about to make gets cut short by "wrong clint" and instead, he falters. instead, his expression shifts, corners of his lips dipping just for a second. ) —Wrong's a word for it. Personally, I'd go for different, but—.

( a loose gesture with a hand as if to say 'whatever'. he'd take it more personally if the situation wasn't what it was. )

Yeah, sure, that's me.

[waytodie]

No, sorry- I didn't mean... [She stares up at the ceiling for a moment and gives a long sigh.] Just that you weren't... her Clint.

[A beat.

And she can't help it. Jokes are definitely a coping mechanism.]

Which also means you are not the Clint Barton I tried to kill. So you have that going for you.

[westcoasts]

( the last remark earns an exhale of breath that's almost a laugh, and— ) D'you know how many people have tried to kill me? ( it's a better response, probably, than "yeah, well, I've died before and it wasn't very interesting". ) Doesn't make you special, Yelena.

But I wasn't. You're not wrong.

un: hidden | audio

[matermali]

Grief was often something I presumed to suffer alone. For most of my life, I did not know how to keep it from consuming me. Driving me. Only of recent years did I discover that it needn't always be the case.

[ Which is to say, Yelena doesn't have to go through this alone. If she's reaching out in any fashion, some part of her seems to understand that.

A pause of consideration. ]

Would you like some company?

@goldenapples

[utinam]

[She could easily recognize when someone was troubled or worse—the glassy eyes and messy hair were clear signs to her. So, Nuvia waited patiently for the other girl to speak, knowing the words would come eventually, and they did, in the form of a question.]

"The last time I handled grief... I ignored it and everyone else for five straight years. I don’t recommend it. Ignoring your grief like I did."

Voice | un: Peter P.

[keepitgoing]

[It's kind of weird, to see suffering in someone else that reflects your own so intimately. Peter hasn't resorted to underaged drinking (yet), but the exhausted, miserable look is one he had worn himself depending on just how the night goes. It feels almost cruel to put up a front, pretend he had it all figured out. Nothing could be further from the truth.]

Umm. To... be honest, I haven't handled it. At all.

[But that's not all. Peter had not missed who was missing. He noticed. Very quickly.]

I'm sorry, Yelena.

i, too, would edit a typo that I noticed hours later, for on thread rereads it would Haunt Me™

[waytodie]

[She squints at him.] But did they do it at Christmastime? I think that makes it a little special.

[It's hard to keep up the very assassin-flavored teasing though. She's still carrying such a heavy heart. She props her chin in her hand and softly, seriously, she asks: ]

Does it get easier?

[Not better, because she can't picture a world without her sister ever being better.]

[waytodie]

Well... that makes two of us.

[There are so many things she has not yet fully unpacked if she's honest with herself. This, perhaps, is just somehow the easiest one to let people see a little bit of.]

[waytodie]

What would you recommend instead? [She tilts her head a little. All perspectives are welcome. Yelena knows that seeming young means nothing about how much a person has been through.] What would you have done differently, if you could go back?

[waytodie]

I don't think I've ever... properly grieved anything. [She admits with a frown. She's never really had the time to. And by the time she did... she had gotten so used to boxing everything up in locked vaults in her mind, she didn't want to risk taking any of it out again.]

...I could probably use a coffee or something. [Which is, you know, a yes. Company would be nice. Even if it isn't the company she wants right now. She can't have that anymore.]

[matermali]

I am not one to offer advice on any 'proper' way to go about it, truth be told. What I do know is that you are not alone here, even if you feel otherwise.

[ Coffee never hurts, either. ]

I can brew us something of finer quality than what the café has on offer, if you are of a mood to come by the house.

[ Any supplies that came with the house are limited quantity, but this should count as a worthy use. ]

UN: timdrake

[mostdangerousbird]

You don’t have to live up to anyone’s standards on how to grieve. It’s your grief. You only have to do what makes it feel all-consuming. You can hole up where you feel comfortable, distract yourself in a million ways, pick a fight with a companion bot.

@ 000

[decohere]

by finding something else to take it out on.

» to action

[waytodie]

It definitely feels like it right now.

[And it's kind of strangely nice that someone pointed it out? Like somehow in this one singular case, she's almost okay with being seen in that way. She doesn't know how to make sense of that, so she chooses instead to simply ignore it for now.]

Yeah... all right. Thanks, Vanessa. [She disconnects the feed and pulls herself together as much as she can for the moment before heading out, winding her way through the streets of the city toward the old Victorian place she'd been to before when she'd first met the woman. She knocks on the large front door with the side of her hand and waits.]

[waytodie]

Hopefully that won't be too hard to do around here, given the bullshit they hand us all the time.

[Some people might find the advice bad, but... Yelena can see the use in it, if she's completely honest.]