Work Text
▼ Monday ▼ It is an unfortunate thing for the world to have a walking Calamity, and one so unaware of her own impending destruction as she stews in her silent misery. And of course, it was Monday. Carol didn't like Mondays. Mondays meant work. She at least got to 'enjoy' her drive into the city, no music in her corolla. Just air from the open window, arm out with a cigarette. Music always made her feel things. Things she had no name for, words that she knew but couldn't pick out. So it always made a heated feeling boil up in her blood. But now, in only the sounds of the world she felt 'peace'. The wind blew her brown hair back, her ponytail tucked into her hoodie. Dark blue eyes that spooked the fool he looked at them. She said hi to no one. Just kept her smile as the vehicle pulled up to her desired turn. Leaving behind Orland park for her job in Palos Heights. Rolling her neck she adjusts the collar of her skin tight undershirt. A black material that covered her chest, right arm and upper left. The blue t-shirt she wore covered her exposed midriff. If she didn't focus on her external senses her mind would drift, and a strange feeling would clench her heart. Make her nauseous and sweaty. Flashes of something brutal would play out behind her blinking eyes. It would be something to bring up to her phycologist in their next session. The problem was asking about it without telling him why she felt like that. And having no desire to go further with that thought she drifted out again. Reaching for her glove box she gave it a hard smack, it fell open and with confident handy work; moved aside the papers and spare pipe for the ID she uses to park in her building. It was probably the only perk about this job. The pay made the rent, and her side work payed for the rest. Hanging it up she slowed to crawl with traffic for a moment, glancing out to the side to the old brick buildings. It made her smile wider, she didn't know why it put a fuzzy feeling in her chest but she didn't mind it. Pulling into the parking building she pointed to her ID, but the guard on duty gave her a firm headshake. Scowling, pressing her thick black boot to the brake now that she was forced to stop behind the metal blocking the way. Relighting her cigarette she leans out of the car, taking a drag. Carol barks."Hey! What's up?" The guard, a man in his forties with a disapproving look and short blonde hair. Someone's dad probably, has the responsible one of the stooges. "You didn't pay your parking ticket, you just gave it back to us." Oh fuck I forgot about that On that last Friday she'd taken her overdue parking tickets and gave it back to them. Shoving it through the small window of the the guard booth and dropping them to the floor. Oh perfect Pulling back into the vehicle she reaches over to the papers that had fallen. Grabbing up the desired ones, the door jammed sometimes. So with a solid kick she got it open and she got out. She's not short, 5ft 8 in her two inch thick steel toed boots. A prized possession of hers. The guard crossed his arms, but this was good for her. I like a gamble. "I'll pay for one of them, but you cut the other 3." She grinned, one of the guards she smoked out now and then. This guy was a tough dad type. But the other was an asshole, and the guard got to see this as he peered at her proof of his parking. Multiple photos of his car double parking, firelane, and one of him keying a car. He squints at her, Carol takes a drag. "I'm gonna be late for work. How much is a parking ticket?""..50 for one."She raised an eyebrow, he pocketed the pictures. "I got 30, this is a parking lot. You're not a cop. I'm not paying you 50." He shrugs. Thought about it "25 and you pop one of his tires."That brought a hard bark of a laugh from Carol. "haggling? If I do that you wave all of them.""25, tire pop and I wave." Carol grins. And nods, forks over a 25. Going back to her car, they look at each other as she gets in. Slamming the door while the guard turned quickly away. The metal raised and Carol went up to park, unaware of the guards shiver.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━It wasn't until break time that Carol had a moment to sit in some silence again. fuck me her head groaned, a headache sure to come on. Hassling people into giving over credit card info for technical support was always a pain. And it made her feel heavy and desperate for another drink. When she'd gone to work she'd brought up her backpack. But she didn't dare reach for the flask in it yet. Carol just ate her lunch quietly, eating another spoonful of leftover fried rice. The silence broken for a moment by the door to the breakroom opening and some coworkers came in. Carol turned away from them, and they both glanced nervously over as they got what they wanted. God I'm scaredMe too!!They both paused in their whispering, heads tipping listening to something that had caught their sound a high sound- uncomfortable to the ears. Goosebumps on their skin. The high screeekkk that filled the room, was Carol. Grinding her teeth, when they glanced back she sent a scowl their way. With that they grabbed up their food, leaving the way they came. The sound of the door closing leaving in her brief quiet once more let her ease back again. fuck them. fuckthemstupidfucks i could- But she stopped as she always had to. The food had lost its flavor and her eyes looked through the sliver of open curtain that let her see the busy office within. Tossing her food Carol redid her hair, and used the small kitchenette sink to wash her face before she returned to work. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Another day of mind numbing work over, she checked the time. An hour or two before she'd need to get to her appointment, usually she'd go home and kill time. But things around the house hadn't been great. Her and her boyfriend Gavin had been... off. Having no words for her feelings made describing things between them hard. The woman's ungloved hand is white knuckled, she sits in the parking lot smoking after her shift. Trying to decide what to do, with a sigh she gets into her car. Turning on the Corolla and driving up one more floor. Eyes scanning. Might as well take care of this now. And there it was, the dusty pickup that was the shit head guards. He must have arrived during her own shift. Putting the car in park she got out, digging into her pocket. And producing her butterfly knife. These were very illegal, but that sort of thing didn't stop Carol. She popped one front tire and one back. Climbing back into vehicle she continues on until she finds a spot to U-turn. Driving down and flipping off the guard as he pulls up the divider. The older man scowls at her and she scowls back. Turning into the street Carol decides to cave and show up early for her session. Deciding she'd just have a sip of her flask and smoke for a bit while she waited. He held sessions at his own home rather then an office building, for the last several years he'd been her psychologist. But she still had yet to really tell him everything, which meant progress was slim. Carol knew the drill, the moment she admitted something bad he'd call the police. They'd get involved and she'd be spending the next 40-100 hundred years in a ward or the state prison. The local jail couldn't be used to hold her. Not with the dark almost red beneath her nails. In the parking lot of the apartment buildings she sat debating. Figuring out how she was going to talk in her session today, and though the idea of it all would really only make her a little upset. Carol could feel in her a bubbling rage, one that made her desperate to release it. Fumbling hands dug into her pocket flipped open the knife. Yanking up her shirt to reveal her stomach and the few scars laced over her ribs. Taking the blade to her skin she digs in and parts the flesh. The wave of pain washing through the bubbling fury. Carols eyes close tight and she concentrates on the knife and the pain from the now open wound. The blood that flowed was warm and she exhales a shaky breath. Reaching into the backseat for her backpack she pulls it to the front, pulling out a somewhat stiff black washcloth. Still stiff from the last time she'd cut herself. It soaked up well enough, she dabbed on some peroxide. Drank more from her flask. Letting out a breathy "Ah-", it took a bit. But she managed to get some thread into the needle eye. And, pretending not to relish this part. She plunged the needle into one side of the open wound and into the other. Beginning to sew herself back up. Dabbing away blood, drinking water from her water bottle. Feeling sweaty and- Carol lets out a soft sigh, winces. Still didn't know. Something about this moment made her feel like the world sucked more then usual. Every session this almost always happened. She'd managed a few without it. Putting it all back, she wraps her chest with bandages. Grabs up the water bottle one more time. And a few pills that laid scattered in the bottom of the front pocket. Probably aspirin. If not she'd be feeling it soon enough. It took her sometime to work up the nerve to get out of the car and up the stairs to the elevator. Her doctor had texted her as she was going up. Are you coming to todays appointment?God damnit.Clearly she was late. How long had she been in her car? Time flew by without her even realizing. It was well past 5:30 now. Almost 6. The door to his home had a thanksgiving wreathe from last year on it still. His matt said 'the doctor is in'. But when the door opened the man who looked down at her didn't look much like a doctor at all. Dr. Gregory Mull was at least 6ft 4, he usually wore a button up and a vest of some sort; he looked ready to go somewhere gloves and newscap dawned. His hair was longer, shaggy even though it was brushed. And a gaunt tired expression that made him appear much older. But when he smiled his appearance lightened and he looked once more in his early 30s, though he hadn't shaved. The slight shadow across his face showed he probably slept in."I was just about to go have lunch, I thought you'd skipped for sure." His voice is kind and soft, Carol cant meet his hazel eyes. "Nope.. I'm here." Ducking past him she moves into the apartment and to one of the chairs in the living room. They usually had their sessions here, or on the patio if it was nice out. As she sits, Carol turns to look at something, hiding the small flash of pain across her face. Damn that cut hurt. But at least she'd have something to hold onto this session.Greg as she often called him, gave a bemused chuckle and followed suit. Sitting in his own seat. Removing his jacket, gloves and hat. Brushing back his hair though it drifted back to his face almost right away. "Lets start then, What did you do over the weekend Carol?"One could only describe her the smile that appeared across her face as rueful.