open -- fate don't fail me

[luisa]

Morningtime at Crossfire, and like every other time in the day, Luisa was hungry. She had come in early to get a few of her hardest stable chores done whilst the day was still young, but she hadn't had breakfast, and her stomach was starting to complain about it. No one was looking, and it would be okay to take a break anyway- the morning cold was making her stupid leg get stiff and achy. From her car she retrieved the breakfast she'd lovingly prepared at like four that morning; leftover rice and beans, a thermos of decent coffee and a handful of Scotch Mints, several hundred thousand half-bags of which littered her home and car. She bought them as the occasional treat for Bones, and always found them kicking around in the pockets of her work pants, or covered with dust at the bottom of her tack tray. She'd been eating as many as she could stand with every meal, and being generous with Bones' treats, just so that one day she might be rid of them.

Luisa leaned back in her couch seat, kicking off her dusty Blundstone work boots so she could put her sock feet up and stretch out her aching leg. Mouth full, she massaged the spots that were bothering her with the heel of her hand, although it didn't really help at all. If the pain went away she'd go for a ride for sure after breakfast, although she wasn't sure where she'd left her riding gear, and if her leg was bothering her for no reason now, it'd probably only get worse if she tried to use it for anything too strenuous. Bones was starting to get impatient with her, seeing as how she couldn't do quite as much as she used to. He seemed tired of the small jumps she'd set up, bunny-hopping them with no trouble and flicking his head like 'is that really all?' Maybe it was her brain projecting her own feelings onto him, but it was all she could do right now. You gotta walk before you can run, said her physio, and she didn't want to push anything, wanting to get back into competition as soon as possible.

Absently, gulping back coffee like it was the only thing keeping her alive, Luisa began to go through the motions of stretching her muscles and adding pressure like the therapist had taught her. Luisa tended to get worked up about this sort of thing, but the fact was neither she nor Bones were built for little kid courses and little kid jumps and the sooner she could stop being ashamed of what she was doing in the arena, and stop feeling like she had to explain that This is really beneath my skill level, I'm just, uh, warming up, the better. She didn't want anybody to know she was injured, and she didn't want anybody to know how little that injury was allowing her to do on horseback, and it was taking all the fun out of riding.

[tyler james haze]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f9f9f9; border: #6d2b2c solid 10px; width: 450px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] i've been waking all my life tagged Luisa words 739 muse merh notes poor tired boy credits template by irish! Getting a job at Crossfire had, potentially, been one of the most uncomfortable situations in Tyler's life... or at least, one of the most uncomfortable situations in his life stateside. He couldn't remember, exactly, how he'd come across the job posting, but at the time he'd been desperate for work... any work... so he was applying for any job that came up, he even sent resume's to places that weren't hiring, in hopes that one of them would decide they could use an extra employee. Granted, he did get a little disability due to everything he'd been through, but when most of the "disability" was from mental and emotional trauma, the government wasn't so quick to hand out a good sized check. They'd rather give it to someone who was missing a limb... which made perfect sense, really, but people who had a hard time working because of the psychological wounds often just had to do without because people couldn't see what was wrong with them. For Tyler, space was the biggest issue. he couldn't work in a place that was crowded, and he couldn't work in a place where he was confined to a small space such as a cubical. That made Crossfire an ideal place for him to work... at least, the openness of it did. So he'd applied and received a call to come in for an interview. When he'd come for the interview he'd been a little overwhelmed with the size of the place. He'd never been in a place that was built for animals that was so... pristine. It didn't even smell like horses. Of course, in his application, he had failed to mention the part where he'd never actually seen a real horse up close in person. He had no use for horses before now, so he'd never been to a barn or anything of the nature. Explaining that had been... well, awkward. How did you tell someone that you wanted to work at a barn when you hadn't even seen a horse up close before? What little bit of pride Tyler had left didn't want him to tell Beth that he desperately needed the job, so he'd apologized for wasting her time, and left. Just to receive a phone call the next day telling him to come the following Monday to start. He didn't know it then, but after meeting Beth's husband, he had a feeling that Danny's military experience probably influenced her to hire him. Then he'd taken a job at the grocery store during the night shift, which meant he had very little time to sleep, ever. He got off there at 6 AM and got to the barn at 8 AM, and considering he was without a vehicle, he essentially went from the grocery store straight to the barn, which meant working from 10PM until 4 PM, and it was exhausting. Sixteen hour days every day eventually wore on an individual. Today was one of those days when it was wearing on him. He felt like he barely made it into the barn, and knew that there was no way he'd make it through the day without some form of artificial energy, and he knew that there was always some in the form of coffee in the lounge. He'd never been a coffee drinker until he joined the Army... and Army coffee was possibly the worst coffee on the planet, so regular coffee tasted about like nectar from heaven. He practically stumbled into the lounge with every intention of heading straight towards the coffee pot... until he spotted Luisa on the couch. "You alright?" he asked, noting the all too familiar motion of stretching injured muscle. He'd been through more physical therapy than he cared to recount, and still would be if he could afford it, mostly just for the grip in his left hand, which was lacking from the nerve damage. He knew exactly how unpleasant it could be. Of course, for all he knew, she was just stretching out a sore muscle or something of that nature, it wasn't like he was any good at telling what was going on with people, especially now that he was a little excessively wary of people.

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[luisa]

Luisa didn't look right away when she heard someone enter the lounge. Instead, she reached down beside her boots to retrieve her beans and rice, which at this point in her hunger were more important than any social interaction. It was only after she reloaded her mouth with rice and beans she looked up and noticed her coworker, Tyler. She didn't know too much about the guy, only that he was less experienced than she was, but he was friendly with her and that would be reason enough to like him. He seemed in a rush for something, but he stopped when he saw her, asked if she was doing alright. Probably because of the leg stretching. She patted her thigh, stopping with the physio exercises after one last relaxing stretch. "Yeah, fine, this thing just gets a little stupid sometimes." She pulled her legs back, freeing up some couch space, and dropping her right leg to the floor so she could keep it straightened out.

"Come sit." She patted the empty space she had made on the couch with the hand not holding her breakfast. "You doing good?" Luisa tended not to be an overly affectionate girl, but she loved to sit and chat with people. Even if it was meaningless small talk, she still came out of her little interactions having learned something, be it the person's name, or useless trivia, or some interesting history. She didn't tend to reveal much about herself in return- she spent a lot of time hoping that people didn't think she was stuck up, just a private person that didn't have much to talk about. Or maybe it was the fact that she had so many things that she didn't really want to talk about. Topping the list was retiring from competition, but there was also stupid mundane things like dating, all because she was making things way too complicated in her head.

Maybe she needed to get things sorted out in her brain before she was able to talk about them? She couldn't decide. Half of Luisa thought that she was just blowing things way out of proportion and getting worked up like she always did, but half of her thought that maybe she was being reasonable. She didn't want people to pity her for being too hurt to compete, and she didn't want anybody to judge her for that whole dating... thing, that was too confusing for even her to think about. She pushed it out of her head with a sip of coffee and decided to let it sort itself out while she got other things accomplished and acted like a productive human being.

[tyler james haze]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f9f9f9; border: #6d2b2c solid 10px; width: 450px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] i've been waking all my life tagged Luisa words 458 muse merh notes poor tired boy credits template by irish! Tyler really hadn't told much of anyone anything about himself besides the basics. Most of the people in Addison had been residents long enough to remember him as the quarterback that handed their season to them four years ago in the play-offs, but beyond that, very few people actually knew what he'd been doing the past four years. Outside of his family, Beth probably knew the most about him, simply because of his resume which he'd sent her with his application, but all she knew was that he'd served in the Army for three years. He was eternally grateful that she hadn't asked about the lapse of employment for the last year when he'd held no job. He didn't want to have to explain that he'd been in intensive rehabilitative physical therapy. What man would? He just nodded when she said that she was alright. He considered saying he knew how that was, but decided against it, too afraid that it might lead to questions that would lead to him giving answers that would tell too much about what he'd been through. He stepped over to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup before moving back over to the couch and slumping down onto the couch where she'd indicated that he should sit. "Well, I'm here." he said in response to her inquiry, "That has to count for something, right?" Most days, it was a wonder that he even made it all the way here. Back when he was in high school, 16 hour days were no big deal. There were too many parties to go to, and too many girls to have relations with to waste time sleeping. Now? He would much rather waste days sleeping than even think about doing anything that involved actually being conscious. "How about yourself?" he asked, knowing that it was considered "proper" to return that question, "I mean besides your leg and all." Since coming back, normal conversations with people became a chore. The more time he spent with someone the easier it became, but talking to people he didn't know was a slightly frightening prospect. He didn't like approaching people that he'd never met before. He knew that he was safe here, but he couldn't help that fear in the back of his mind that anyone he saw could potentially have bad intentions, especially in areas that were crowded and full of people. As far as he was concerned, this amount of social interaction, in a quiet, safe place, with just one person who he knew and wasn't threatened by, was about as close to heaven as one could get on earth.

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[luisa]

Tyler obviously didn't have expectations for himself as high as Luisa set hers. For her, it would never be enough to be there and to still be kicking. For Luisa, she wouldn't be satisfied unless she was here, alive, well-fed and rested, and making visible progress on whatever she was doing at the time, as well as on at least one side-project she was working on. To be there was only barely something, one box checked off on a whole list, like showing up to a final exam and counting that as a success. Still, different people had different ways of thinking. It probably broke down to Tyler being a lot more secure than she was in his efforts, and Luisa could respect that. In fact, she encouraged it. She knew he worked hard and it probably took a lot more effort for him than for her to get up in the morning and drag himself to the barn. "Yeah man, cheers to that." she sipped her coffee and leaned back in her seat, beginning to stretch her leg again. She figured there was no hiding from this guy.

In response to his Tyler, Luisa shrugged, actually giving a little thought to the arbitrary question. "Better than I thought I'd be right now, if that makes sense." She wouldn't go to any detail, but only because it was due to the fact that she had binged on online ghost stories and lost a lot of sleep over it. However, even though she arrived at the barn in the part of the morning when it was still dark, and even though she was delirious with fear and tiredness, she still had the good sense to tough it out, because there probably weren't any ghosts in this barn. Maybe. The horses would give it away, right? Usually around ghosts, animals started to freak out. Then again, it could be in the race barn. She could hardly tell the difference between a racehorse that was simply ready to get onto the track, and a racehorse that had just seen a ghost.

A chill passed over her spine. What if she was working in a place with ghosts in it? "Hey," she said, looking for reassurance but making her tone convincingly conversational. "do you believe in ghosts?" And if so, do you think there are ghosts in here? How would a person keep those spirits undisturbed? Are they going to kill me?

[tyler james haze]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f9f9f9; border: #6d2b2c solid 10px; width: 450px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] i've been waking all my life tagged Luisa words 458 muse merh notes poor tired boy credits template by irish! It was true, at this point in his life, Tyler had no expectations for himself. He had no goals, no aspirations. Whatever dreams he had of a future were long since gone. Right now, his only objective was to survive from one day to the next. Between the bills and the taxes and his grandmother's doctor's visits and prescriptions, survival was all that he could ask of himself. The only way he could keep his family together was to keep his grandmother out of a home and tucked away out of the eyes of the child protective services. If they found out that Gracie's primary guardian could hardly remember what she was doing in the middle of doing simple tasks like getting dressed, then no doubt they would take her away. He could file for disability for her which would help with the bills, but he would rather work his life away to pay them than to have a little extra money and have Gracie taken away from him. She was the most important thing in his life. Since the day he'd been shot and taken captive, he'd been counting the days that he had survived. It had become such a habit over those many months of his captivity that he forgot to stop counting when he'd been rescued. The only thing that had kept him going all that time was the picture he had that Gracie had sent him while he was deployed. Now as he struggled to function like a sane human being just in day to day life among a society that wasn't out to kill him, going home to her at the end of every day was the only thing that kept him going. When he felt like the world was closing in on him again, he had to remind himself over and over and over again that she was there waiting for him and depending on him. Keeping her safe, warm, and fed had become his new mission, and neve rmind what doing that would do to his own health and well-being. She was all that mattered. In the midst of all that, ghosts weren't really something that Tyler had ever really thought about before. When he thought of ghosts he just imagined a person with a white sheet over their head and holes cut out for the eyes. He'd never really been a spiritual person, so he was pretty sure that he didn't think people stuck around after they died and haunted people. To him, they were just something that was spoken about in children's stories and horror movies. He'd never seen anything to suggest otherwise, so as far as he was concerned they couldn't possibly exist. Of course, he hadn't taken into account the whole "not everyone can see them" thing that people seemed to often be on about, but he'd not put enough thought into it to really consider anything other than the fact that he didn't believe in them. "I never really thought about it before." he said a bit pensively, "I guess I don't really, but what do I know?" He wasn't too sure what had brought on the question so randomly. It seemed to him like she'd just pulled it out of the blue. "Why do you ask?" he questioned, curious now as to what she was getting at. It wasn't really the time of year for people to have ghosts on the mind. Normally things like that came up around Halloween, but to each their own. For all he knew, she could have thought she'd seen one... or felt one... or something of the nature. He found her reasons for askin, whatever they were, far more intriguing than the actual question itself.

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