My Nearly Departed • •

[Kai Edvard Falkenberg]

Kai had seen the monsters that walked the streets of the city up close. He cuffed them, interrogated them, and watched them get locked away for a long time. He knew that New York was only a City of Dreams for those who were naïve enough to ignore the shadows running through the night. His body was already shredded with scars from the IED blast that almost cost him a friend, a naval brother, and yet he never once stopped to worry about himself. Kai put everyone else first, all of the time. He was a defender of the innocent. He helped keep the people who wanted to see the light from being touched by the darkness. He didn’t care about the cost to himself. It had never been about that, about him. So when he was chasing down that monster – the man who had destroyed his wife’s life and traumatised his children, Kai hadn’t worried about the gun the man was known to have. All he worried about was the little boy he knew was in that apartment with him. There was probably a procedure that would have involved hostage negotiators, or someone at least more skilled at talking men like him down, but Kai didn’t think they could afford to wait for all that. He took the fire escape, snuck in through a bedroom window and made a plan to take the monster down just like he had done so many times before. He had his vest on – like always – but his priority was getting the son out of harm’s way first.

He had the boy. He had him tight in his arms, promising him that there was nothing and no one who could harm him now, when the bullet flew by, missing Kai’s head by millimetres. He pushed the boy to the safety of the fire escape, telling him to climb down and then turned back with his own sidearm drawn. The little boy was safe, and that was all that mattered. There were officers surrounding the building, they would take him to his mother in the hospital and everything would be okay again. Kai had fired off several rounds with at least one catching the shooter in the shoulder, and he felt a bullet catch his own vest, staggering him, but then another skimmed the top of the vest before piercing his chest. Kai hit the floor, but he could hear his fellow officers and detectives closing in. All that mattered was that the little boy was safe, and that he wasn’t the only man in the room bleeding.

When he awoke in the hospital he was a little surprised, and extremely disorientated. He hadn’t expected to wake up again, and Kai was okay with that. He told his family at every opportunity that he loved them and never ended a day on a sour note with them just in case a bullet did miss his vest. Astrid was at his side, wide eyed and irritated with her big brother, but Kai couldn’t remember their conversation five minutes after she left. All he did know was that his wishes to be released were denied, and that he had been in surgery for three hours, and gave everyone quite the scare. His chest was covered in bandages that made him itch, and his private room was full of cards and flowers he didn’t want. Not that he wasn’t grateful for the well wishes, but he had just been doing his job. It took forcing a colleague to tell him to find out that the guy who shot him was now in prison, awaiting a trial date, while the wife and children were going to move to Pennsylvania where her parent were. Kai had put a bullet in his shoulder and hip before going down which obviously helped subdue him. Kai hated using his gun, but he was glad it had turned out well for the family, even if he was stuck in a hospital bed for an unknown amount of time since doctors were seemingly reluctant to tell him anything. He refused pain medication, cut off his own morphine drip, and put up with the throbbing in his chest, the agony when he moved. Pain meant he was alive, and he wanted to just get back to living; working, swimming, being an uncle to TK who didn’t like seeing him in the hospital bed. No one wanted to grant him one inch of that back though. Even Astrid reprimanded him on a daily basis for giving the nurses a difficult time.

• • •

TAGGED! Elliot Taylor Mercer
WORDS! 764!
OUTFIT! Wounded Warrior!
LYRICS! Go go go - - Sleeping With Sirens
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Elliot Taylor Mercer]

Too many people seemed to be enthralled with how everyone else was. It was human nature, ET got that but what she didn’t understand was why they bothered asking when they really couldn’t give a damn. When she asked someone how they were, she meant it and her crew meant it when they asked her the same thing. It was really all she’d ever asked of them; to not be fake, to mean what they said to her. She spent so much time as a teenager seeing those plastered on fake smiles while the worry or the disinterest shimmered through their eyes quite blatantly for her to see. She had hated it and had started making bullshit up just to get reactions from people who asked how she was doing.

ET didn’t like talking about the accident, or the fact that she was one of the few that survived. Their carriage had the least amount of damage because it had been the last carriage on the train and the train had been a long one. It was a big reason she’d moved away from Virginia Beach. She wanted to get away from where everyone knew and everyone stared. ET didn’t know how Jordan did it, how he had a life there. She couldn’t ignore the stares and the whispers behind her back so she only went home for holidays and even then, she didn’t stay long. Now the only outward sign that anything had ever happened to her were the volunteer hours she put in at the hospital with her crew, painting faces and teaching the kids the cool tricks she knew about movies.

She was packing up after a couple hours with the kids when one of the nurses stopped her. At first, ET genuinely didn’t recognise the young girl. She looked more tired than usual and the sunny smile that was usually on her face was strained. After talking to her for a few minutes, ET sent her team back to the studio without her and followed Astrid to another ward and hugged her before she went back to work when they stopped outside one of the rooms. Heaving a sigh, ET steeled herself for what she might see. She’d been flirty with Astrid’s older brother long enough with nothing at all to show for it. He was a stubborn one but she could be so much worse. His sister had assured her the doctor’s were all gone from his room and the nurses refused to go in unless it was the scheduled time. Elliot had never met a more difficult man in her entire life. She had no idea what made him that way but she knew he needed to relax. So she pushed the door open to the private room and leaned against the wall when she was in view of the bed. “Heard you were here. Had to see for myself.” She said nonchalantly, pushing herself off from the wall and moving over to the chair beside the bed where she made herself comfortable, stretching her legs out as if she hadn’t just been sitting for two hours painting faces and masks.

Tag || Kai Edvard Falkenberg
Words || 555
Clothes || Pretty in Pink
Music || Angel Eyes --Love And THeft
notes || <3

[Kai Edvard Falkenberg]

Kai seemed disinterested and cold, but he was a man who cared. He probably cared too much. He risked life and limb for complete strangers and he didn’t want anything else in return. He did it all because he wanted to, because he thought it was the right thing to do. His distant nature had just been his way since he was a boy, despite the loving family he had been surrounded by. Even he didn’t have a nice answer giftwrapped and tied with a bow as to why he could be the way he was sometimes. He just wanted everyone he cared for to be safe. He wanted them to be able to go to sleep at night and not worry about what the morning might bring. Everything with Kai was internalised. The only person in the world who saw differently was TK. She was an innocent little soul who brought the best out in her uncle, and that was only because he didn’t want her to see the horrors he saw daily in his eyes when she looked up at him. She deserved better than that.

She also deserved an uncle out of bed. That was why Kai was refusing the standard hospital gown and had insisted Astrid bring him some of his things from his apartment. He had been told to use the buzzer when he needed the bathroom so that a nurse could come and help, but he’d ignored that, too. Kai was in his own clothes, refusing as much help as he could. He was determined to be out of here before the end of the week. He knew he wouldn’t be back at work for a while, but being back at home was a tiny thing in comparison. If he had any flashback dreams there wouldn’t be anyone around to ask about them, or try to talk him into speaking to someone. Kai was fine mentally. He had seen the work appointed shrinks a few times over incidents in cases he had worked. Each time they had considered him fine and fit for duty. He was ex-navy though, and like anyone retired from military service, the memories sometimes came back to haunt him. He hadn’t even told Astrid about them, and Kai usually swam them off until he was comfortable again; a luxury he would have to build up to again now.

Kai was not expecting guests. Astrid called by, but he had told his parents not to waste money on cab fares each day. They still came often, but what was the point when they could do so little, and they clearly hated seeing him there after what had almost happened. They’d never talk him out of his work, so they didn’t try. Everyone from work who would come had been already, and Kai knew he wouldn’t see them again while he was in the hospital. They’d probably try to arrange something once he was out, or just wait until he was back in the precinct in a few months’ time. When the door opened and ET walked in, he was surprised. He hadn’t expected to see her again, let alone have her pay a visit to his room while he was confined to it. “Well, you’ve seen it now. I’m right here.” He said, his voice raspy. Ever since he had woken up he had sounded that way, but Astrid and the doctors said it was to be expected given the entry of the bullet and the surgery he had needed to save his life. It would rectify itself in due course, apparently.

• • •

TAGGED! Elliot Taylor Mercer
WORDS! 603!
OUTFIT! Wounded Warrior!
LYRICS! Go go go - - Sleeping With Sirens
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Elliot Taylor Mercer]

ET had no real reasons to be so concerned about a cop she'd met a handful of times. But she'd taken a liking to him. It didn't help that she was so emotionally closed off in some ways and that he'd felt almost like a kindred spirit. Nor did it help that he had such a tough exterior and ET was a stubborn woman who wanted to know what sort of gooey center was just on the other side of those walls he'd built up so damn high! She knew what was wrong with her and there was nothing that could fix it but time and even that may never set her memory to rights again. She was a mess and probably should have been considered a lost cause but she'd managed to figure her own shit out well enough; not letting any of it get her down when she knew some would cower and never leave their homes again. ET wasn't that girl. Yes, she'd been terrified and had yet to get on another train, even the underground in New York, but she at least knew she needed to get out there and experience the rest of what life had to give her.

She hadn't taken her second chance for granted and helped other people when she could. She went to the hospital back home to read to the sick kids, spend some time with them and providing both doctors and parents gave okays, she would turn them into mermaids, werewolves and fairy princesses. It had been something she'd started when she was helping out at the first special effects shop back in Virginia and something she'd taken with her when she moved away for school. It was her way of giving back and though it was something small, it was something that made the kids happy. There was a little girl though whom she knew was worried about a very important person in her life and there was nothing ET could do about it. ET wore her heart on her sleeve and she knew it. She couldn't hide her emotions, despite how hard she tried. There were times of course, when she could and she was quite proud of herself in those moments but more often than not, everyone knew exactly how ET was feeling about everything. She might as well cart around a neon sign telling everyone what her mood was.

It was obvious Kai wasn't expecting people to shower him with attention while he was recovering. ET had been the same way. She hadn't wanted people to visit her in the hospital in Miami. She had wanted to be left alone. Of course, her excuses and reasons were vastly different from Kai's; at least she figured it was that way. Neither one of them were fond of talking about their pasts, about what happened to them to bring up the walls they had. It was clear ET had an easier time opening up when she had to but even she felt like something was crawling under her skin when she spoke about her experiences. "I bet you're sick of being asked if you need anything, hmm?" She asked, instead of taking what he was saying and cowering. He wouldn't talk to her, instead probably either go with the silent treatment or just yell at her to leave but she was used to both of those reactions from her brother when he'd finally woken up from their accident.

Tag || Kai Edvard Falkenberg
Words || 581
Clothes || Pretty in Pink
Music || Angel Eyes --Love And THeft
notes || <3

[Kai Edvard Falkenberg]

People assumed Kai was the way he was because he had served. They thought he had seen and done terrible things that had closed him off and left him a different man to who he once was. They need only ask his old school friends if they wanted to know the truth. Kai had always been a stoic kind of guy. He was focused on the world around him and the dangers it contained. He wanted to protect people, to keep the ones he loved safe from harm. He was perfectly capable of cracking a smile and enjoying himself, but Kai didn’t need to run wild or tear the city up to have fun. He just wasn’t that kind of man. He didn’t drink or lose control of himself and he had no interest in that way of life. Kai preferred remaining n control at all times, and even the offer of pain medication made him scrunch his nose up in disgust. Maybe everyone else would sit in the bed and take it like a good patient, but Kai would rather feel the burning pain by his stitches and the dull ache in his torn up muscle. He’d prefer to feel how he survived than be sleepy and delirious.

He liked to remain alert. Too many times he had gone to speak to victims only to find out that memories were lost because of drugs given to help them. Kai wanted them to feel safe, to be helped in any way possible, but it was also crushing to realise that something vital was lost in a foggy haze of a tranquiliser or painkiller. Sometimes it came back to them later, but other times it was gone forever, and Kai didn’t know if there might be anything else they could do to lock their attacker away. It was why even as he was bleeding out he made sure to tell everything to the next officer on the scene. He wanted it all down on record before he blacked out. He couldn’t remember much of it when he woke up, but it was coming back in short bursts and slow waves now. Kai was thankful for that. It had been the same after the IED explosion when his skin was healing and was angry and tight. Everything was hazy and hard to recall, but it soon came back to him. It just took a little time for the gaps to close up.

Kai was ready to go home. The doctors and nurses told him otherwise, but he was sick of this hospital room. If he was just resting up then he could do it in the familiar space of his own apartment. At least there he would have privacy without people coming in all the time and disturbing him. Kai wasn’t the sociable type, not really. He didn’t go out for drinks with his colleagues, and his phone contacts barely hit double digits. “I have nurses for that.” He answered, though he told them he didn’t need anything every single time they came to check on him and asked that question. Kai hated being fussed over. He was independent and liked doing things for himself. He didn’t need extra pillows, or to have his bed changed every day. It was all unnecessary and felt like coddling. He was a grown man for crying out loud!

• • •

TAGGED! Elliot Taylor Mercer
WORDS! 565!
OUTFIT! Wounded Warrior!
LYRICS! Go go go - - Sleeping With Sirens
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Elliot Taylor Mercer]

ET's friends back home could never figure out how her brother became a trauma doctor and she volunteered her time within the sterile walls. But it was as simple as the fact that they'd spent plenty of time as patients in a similar building and knew exactly what it was like to be stuck in there with nothing. Jordan had wanted to save lives like the team that had saved theirs and ET well, she'd always been meant for different things. So she volunteered her time, distracting the sick kids, making them laugh and turning them into her own little army of monsters. There wasn't much ET could do but she could distract beautifully. Her hospital stay might not have been so gloomy and depressing if there had been fun things to distract her. The memories she did have might have surfaced faster if she'd had some sort of distraction and maybe the ones that were lost forever would have surfaced! She would never know how things might have turned out differently though, she only knew what life was like now. And that included having a very large blank space in her memory with nothing at all to wake it up.

Lucky for her, she didn't need those months back, though they might have helped with her work. She was creative enough to not need the drama and trauma of those lost memories to design terrifying monsters. Her imagination was dark and twisted enough to bring those styles to life but it was also bright enough to bring about the sweeter side of her designs. And sure, maybe she had terrible, frightening dreams that woke her in the dead of night in a puddle of cold sweat, having trouble breathing and no recollection of what it was exactly she had been dreaming about. Those were the scariest parts of her life; not knowing. Jordan always got a phone call on those nights but it would have been nice to be able to tell him what she'd been dreaming about. Instead, all she could tell him was that it was pitch black. She wished more than anything that she could stop calling him in the middle of the night to tell him nothing at all. She almost wished for that kind of relationship with her brother where they only spoke on holiday and birthdays. Except that would never be them, they had always been a lot closer than that.

ET stretched a little further, thinking about throwing her feet up on the bed a second before following through with the action. "Oh, no. I asked if you were sick of hearing it. I wasn't offering anything. I'm not your maid." She said, shaking her head at him. She was well aware of how people were treated when they were stuck in a hospital bed. She'd been exhausted after only remembering a couple days of it. There was a very specific reason she couldn't remember all of that accident and most of her hospital stay. She hadn't needed to be coddled or treated like fine China, she hadn't been about to break. What she had needed but hadn't gotten was the exact treatment she was giving Kai now but not treating him any differently than if they'd bumped into each other on the street.

Tag || Kai Edvard Falkenberg
Words || 552
Clothes || Pretty in Pink
Music || Angel Eyes --Love And Theft
notes || <3

[Kai Edvard Falkenberg]

Kai had his troubles; he just didn’t talk about them. People had them a great deal worse than he did. He wasn’t trapped in a terrifying and haunting world of PTSD flashbacks, and his scars were not as gruesome as some he had seen. His injuries from the years in the Navy were not life changing or limiting, and Kai had already gone on to live and be hurt again. He would recover from his and push on again, just like he had done before. Kai wasn’t the type to let this bother him. People had gone through worse and survived, and he needed to help those people find justice and closure in their lives. He was going to be fine. There would be a scar, and it would be obvious he’d been shot, but he would be okay again. He doubted this would add to his nights of sleeplessness, or the hours of anger he swam sway in the pool and in the open water.

He had absolutely no intention of staying in this hospital bed, or room. Kai wanted to go home. He could rest up there and it came with the freedom to move around and not be fussed over so much. He didn’t want to spend hours sitting around constantly being checked up on by nurses who wanted to turn his clean bed down, to check his blood pressure for the umpteenth time, and ask him questions they already knew the answer to. Kai wasn’t going to change his mind on the pain medication. He didn’t want it, and he wasn’t going to have it. They didn’t seem to understand that he’d been through worse, that he had his reasons for refusing so much. He wasn’t being as difficult as they were acting, but Kai also wasn’t going to sit there and explain his life story to people who were better spending their time treating people who were in worse health than he was. He was going to be okay, and he had no idea why they were still keeping him in the sterile, bare room. It was driving him crazy.

He narrowed his eyes at ET threw her feet up on his bed. “Why are you here?” He asked, cutting to the chase. He wasn’t in the mood for jokes and games. Kai was sick of being in his bed, and he was fed up of being treated like he was some delicate flower. Yes, he had been shot. Yes, he had almost died. However, in his head death was just another part of life and eventually everyone would end up in the ground with a marble headstone marking their life in nothing but dates. It didn’t mean he needed to be treated like precious glass that would smash if it wasn’t swaddled and coddled. He was a grown man, he knew his body, his limits. He could take care of himself at this point and being babied in a hospital bed was not what he needed. It just frustrated him.

• • •

TAGGED! Elliot Taylor Mercer
WORDS! 508!
OUTFIT! Wounded Warrior!
LYRICS! Go go go - - Sleeping With Sirens
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Elliot Taylor Mercer]

Since the accident, ET hadn't been one to tell her tale to anyone. In fact, she had never really been one to say more than she needed to in any situation. Sure, she could be talkative, her mouth ran circles, especially when she was nervous, but she talked about nonsensical things. It had been a long time since she'd shied away from anything. Life was too short to pull bullshit stunts like that and quite frankly, ET didn't have the time to cower away. Her first ever boss in the film industry had loved her work but hated how she stuck to the corner space to sketch or sculpt. He had hated those damn over-sized headphones of hers blaring rock music. One of the first things he'd told her about the studio was that they could play whatever music they fancied as long as no one minded it; and even if they did, everyone had a day they could play whatever they wanted. It was how he'd managed to keep everyone somewhat happy and appeased. But it was with his help that ET returned to her old self.

Sure that new and improved her was a bit scarred up and had become a little more alternative than she'd been before the crash but people were always changing and ET honestly thought the new wardrobe actually fit her personality better than the frilly pink lace and things that her mother used to buy her. To be fair to her mother, she hadn't been interested in those things before the crash but before the crash, she'd not really picked out her own clothes when shopping. Of course her mother thought she was losing her little girl but that was hardly the case. In reality, she was finally getting her real daughter. ET wasn't and couldn't be that little girl in the frilly pink dresses anymore. She finding her own way and that way meant dark, tight clothes and tattoos and making monsters.

ET tilted her head to the side, resting her eyes on the forever grumpy man in the bed. "Do you know why I make monsters?" She asked, curiously. She completely ignored his question because her answer didn't matter and she knew it. She could tell him that her heart rate had spiked when his sister had told her he was in a bed of his own, that in the short amount of time they'd known each other, ET felt close to Kai, a kinship perhaps. Hell, she didn't know. She could also tell him that she likes the food, a total lie, or that the room was quiet and she was developing a headache, also a lie. The truth was complicated and messy, especially since he remained stoic and emotionless towards her. The man acted like a robot and she still wasn't convinced he wasn't one. She waited a beat to see if he would answer her, give her an opinion. She honestly didn't think he would though.

Tag || Kai Edvard Falkenberg
Words || 498
Clothes || Pretty in Pink
Music || Angel Eyes --Love And Theft
notes || <3